


What A Pain In The Neck

by sh_wright890



Series: Definitely Not Twilight [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Adding angst again cause there's even more, Alcohol, Already i know, Anal Sex, Angst, Betrayal, Blood, Blood Drinking, Depression, Drugs, Enemies to Lovers, Even more slowburn, Flashbacks, Friends to Enemies, Hate, Hunting again, It's like another mini story inside this one yikes, Jean's a bit of a mess, Lots of depression tbh, Love Confessions, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Organized Crime, PTSD, Pain, Pining, References to Depression, Sex, Soulmates, Suicide Attempt, Tbh it's just a shitshow right now, Vampires, Werewolves, clubs, eventually, just keep squinting for now, murders, there's supposed to be a happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-09
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-01-31 06:29:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 42,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12676272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sh_wright890/pseuds/sh_wright890
Summary: It's been over three years since Jean Kirschtein turned his used-to-be best friend into a vampire. Not long after, Marco escaped and hasn't been heard from since. Until now.All over the country, vampires are showing up dead, drained from twin holes on their necks. Nobody knows who is causing it, and millions of vampires are escaping to other countries. As the murders increase, it becomes obvious that the supernatural cops aren't doing their job, and Jean has never been one to sit around while shit goes sideways.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to hell^2.
> 
> (The Prologue by Halsey)

You know what actually sucks? Rogue vampires suck. Not just literally but figuratively. Wait, no. That doesn’t make sense either. Actually? Nevermind. You know what I mean.

They’re a real pain in the neck because they constantly run the risk of exposing the rest of us to the humans. That’s obviously no bueno since they’d try to run tests on us, and some of them would want to be vampires as well. (It isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, just sayin’.)

As horrible as they are, there’s only one thing worse than that: a rogue vampire that hunts other vampires instead of humans. Yeah, those exist now, and they’re getting stronger and stronger by the day.

The icing on the cake? I think I know who it is.


	2. Surprise: an unexpected or astonishing event, fact, or thing.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing could prepare me for seeing my demons come back to haunt me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so this chapter was supposed to be a lot longer, but I really wanted to get something out. School has been eating me alive, so I probably won't get the next chapter posted for a couple months at least. Thank you for all the comments and support I've received on this so far! I really plan on some extreme character development for this, and don't worry, our boys will definitely have a happy ending.
> 
> (Edit: Lmao it gets so, so angsty before the aforementioned happy ending, just so you know. Also! At this point, you don't have to read Wow, That Sucks before this, but things will make a LOT more sense if you do.)
> 
> (Edit #2: I had to go back and adjust again because Jean and Marco have a conversation in the upcoming chapter I'm writing--part 4--and I realized I didn't hint enough/use the right words to suggest character development over the past fourish years that aren't in the story that lead up to that conversation. So if you're at all like, "Wait, wasn't Jean a lot more pissed than this?" Yeah, he was originally, but I had to adjust a smidge. 'Tis the nature of the beast, I suppose. ALSO! I tried to add very, very subtle foreshadowing about something that happened to Jean before this part of the story begins.
> 
> Thank you to everybody for bearing with me as I try to make this better for all of you!)

“This blows,” I grumbled, blowing out a puff of smoke and throwing my cigarette down, crushing it underfoot. I didn’t smoke, but we were supposed to be putting up appearances--blending in. Of all people, Levi and I were paired together, scouting the seedy nightclub. He said it was nicer on the inside, but I was having a hard time believing that.

“Don’t complain.” He lit a cigarette and took a drag from it like a champ. I was at least 68% sure he was a smoker at one point in his life. I didn’t know if vampires could get cancer, but we were immortal. There was no way I was pushing my luck. “It’s unbecoming.”

I barked a laugh. “Pot calling the kettle black, don’t you think?”

He scowled. “I can gather intel by myself. I don’t need some second-rate little--”

“Glad to know you enjoy my company,” I interrupted. “Besides, nobody wants to talk to the epitome of an anus.”

“Excuse me?”

“An anus,” I repeated. “Like a rectum or an asshole.”

He seemed to consider this. “You know what? I’m feeling pretty generous, so I won’t kill you.” I scoffed. “Yet.” He took a long drag of his cigarette. “The night is still young.”

“And you, my friend, are not.”

Throwing his cigarette on the ground and stomping on it like I did earlier, he scowled again in my direction. If somebody had looked at me like that four years ago, I would’ve tucked my tail between my legs and sprinted away. Not now. Especially since I knew Levi better.

“Piece of shit,” he muttered under his breath, knowing that I could hear him perfectly fine.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked it. 11:56. “You love me, old man. Should we go inside?”

Without answering, he pushed past me and went through the doors, letting them fall shut behind him. I rolled my eyes and followed. Jeez. You’d think after 200 years you could learn how to not be a dick for a few minutes.

The second we walked--pushed, rather--through the door, I could tell why Erwin picked this club of all places: it was jam-packed with vampires.

Don’t ask me how I could tell if somebody is a vampire. I’m honestly not certain about the logistics of it. Sometimes I think they smell different than normal, but they really don’t. Some vampires are either really edgy or supremely conservative--stuck in their old way of living. The older ones talk differently sometimes. I’m not sure if it’s because they’re being stubborn and don’t want to adapt to the times or if it’s because they physically can’t. Then there’s the most obvious sign: when I catch a glimpse of a fang, they use their full strength or speed, or when they do anything else that is distinctly vampire.

This time? It was extremely obvious. Fangs were flashing everywhere, blood filled their cups to the brim, and they were dressed flamboyantly. They were even biting and drinking blood from other each other as they pleased. Tongues laved on necks. Hands groped at clothes. Hips ground against other bodies. Half of it was what the human part of me would’ve considered normal, and the other half was what the vampire side of me thought of normal. Yet it seemed totally foreign and different to me. Needless to say I never bothered to ask my vampire grandparents about the etiquette for vampire night clubs. 

Surreal might’ve been a better word for the whole ordeal.

For a moment, I lost Levi in the crush of bodies, and I could only stand there and stare at the people around me. Every once in awhile, somebody would give me a pitying glance as if they knew it was my first time in an establishment such as this.

My throat dried up, and my mouth watered from the smell of blood coming from all around me, but before I could even locate the bar, there was a tug on the back of my head.

“Ouch! What the fuck?” I demanded, looking behind me and rubbing my head. I swear I had a bald spot where hair used to be.

“That was for calling me old.” Levi crossed his arms. “Try not to get lost this time, brat. We don’t have all night.” And he turned on his heel and walked away.

I did my best to keep up with him. “Hey! Could you slow down a little?”

The exasperated huff he gave was audible over the pulsating music, but he did oblige me.

I wasn’t sure where we were going, but I followed obediently. Luckily, it wasn’t far. Levi sat at the bar as soon as we reached it, and I took a seat next to him. The countertop was a mirror, and it reflected the black and neon lights. On the very end, I saw somebody lean down and snort a line of white powder.

“Seriously?” I leaned in and asked Levi. He looked at where my gaze was pointed and shrugged.

“What do you want me to do about it?”

I sighed.

The bartender, some scantily dressed blond, leaned against the counter. “Anything I can help you with, Boss?”

“Boss?”

The bartender looked up and gave me a funny look, but Levi ignored me completely. “Anything suspicious happened yet?”

He shook his head and tossed his hair out of his face. “No, not yet. But this is the biggest party of the year in this part of the country. The murderer is bound to show up.”

Levi placed his hand on the counter. “You know the drill.”

The blond nodded and started wiping down the counter, making a face when he got to the spot Crack Head abandoned.

“Boss?” I repeated dumbly.

If anything, Levi seemed smug. “Erwin and I own the place.”

I blinked. “Seriously?”

He put his hands out on either side of him. “La di fucking da, Champ.”

“Is this why you guys have so much money?” They managed to pay for Mikasa’s college without the need of any financial assistance--though, they encouraged her to apply for as many scholarships as she could. The same thing happened with Historia. Then as a going away gift, they gave me a car. _A car_. Sure, it wasn’t brand new, but hot fucking damn.

“Partially.”

“What else do you guys specialize in? Drugs?”

His eyes scanned the crowd, and he sipped a drink the bartender slid to him. “Do pharmaceuticals count?”

“Jesus Christ.” I ran a hand through my hair. Nearly half a decade and I had no clue they had their fingers in so many pies.

“You about done?”

I raised a hand to the bartender. He took pity on me and slid me a glass of something or other. I took and drink and relished the burn. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“I’m going to stay here and see if I can get any information out of these idiots. You go to the dance floor and do what you can. Watch the exits. Pay attention to shifty people.” He paused and seemed to reconsider. “Shiftier than normal. Seduce it out of them. _Don’t_ look suspicious. _Don’t_ cause problems, and _don’t you dare_ scare away any of my customers. Got it?”

I threw back my drink and set it on the mirror counter. “You got it, Boss,” I replied with a smirk and mock two-finger salute. He rolled his eyes and disappeared to the other end of the bar, leaving me to my own devices.

All the bodies moving made it hot--a difficult feat seeing as how we were all half dead. People pressed themselves against me, and I let them. It was strange. Ever since I’d gotten turned, I had an even bigger aversion to being touched, but I found that I didn’t mind. Maybe it was because I was slipping into the role of Biggest Flirt, and I was telling myself that they weren’t actually touching _me._ Or maybe my instincts were giving me a fucking break for once. 

Whatever the case, it was almost comforting to get to able to blend into the background. No expectations or demands for a handful of hours.

The crowd seemed to be pushing me toward the stage that was set up across the from the bar. Of all the things that could’ve been on there, there were poles set up. Three figures spun and gyrated in the blacklight. It was impossible to tell what gender they were from where I was standing, but they were covered in neon paint--backs and bellies; arms and legs; even their faces were painted. I greatly appreciated the shape of the person on the left pole. They seemed different from the rest in the way they moved. More natural.

Spectators were lined along the edge of the stage, drinking and laughing and watching. It was hard to blame them. The fluid way they swayed and twisted reminded me of water. It was mesmerizing watching the neon paint flow under the blacklights. 

I was so captivated, in fact, that I hardly noticed when somebody wrapped their arms around my waist and mouthed against my neck. My attention was snapped from the stage when I felt the brush of fangs against the skin--not quite hard enough to break the skin but enough to make me focus on my captor.

As if on autopilot, I lifted my arms above and behind me, digging my hands into their hair. Their hands ran over my hips and sides. Taking some inspiration from the dancers on stage, I slowly dropped into a crouch, dragging my body along theirs the whole way down before sliding back up just as slow. Total thot move. The next time their hands held my hips, it was with a possessiveness so palpable I could taste it.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” they all but growled into my ear.

I turned around and placed my hands on their--his--shoulders, rubbing my palms up and down his chest. He was stocky and a few inches taller than me with close-cropped hair. “Aren’t you gonna buy me a drink first?”

An easy grin slid onto his face, and he held out his hand. “Of course. Where are my manners?”

I took it and let him pull me toward the bar, looking back at the stage one final time at the three graceful dancers as we went.

The bartender looked up at me when we got there, and the guy I was with rattled off the name of some weird ass drink to him before sitting down on a stool next to me. I could see Levi on the other end of the bar glaring at me like, _I thought we talked about this. What the fuck are you doing over here?_

I ignored him. “What’s your name, big guy?”

“Reiner Braun,” he replied.

The bartender slid our drinks over to us. I snagged a stir stick and swirled it around inside the glass just to have something to do with my hands. Now was the hard part: getting information out of the guy without seeming suspicious. “Do you come here often?” I asked coyly. _Dammit, Jean. Don’t be so cliche._

The guy seemed oblivious to my awkwardness. “Not really, no. Only every once in awhile.” He took a swig of his own drink, totally at ease. “You don’t seem the type to come to these places.” He eyed me over the rim of his glass.

Okay, so maybe not so oblivious.

“Not really,” I began slowly, trying to get my bearings again. “I wasn’t turned too long ago, and this is the first time I’ve ever been somewhere like this.” Not technically a lie…

“Oh, really?”

I nodded, trying to make myself seem smaller and innocent somehow. Don’t even ask. “And you’re the first person who’s shown any interest,” I grumbled petulantly. Hopefully, I could play into some of his stereotypes based on my looks and subtle actions. Even though we didn't have any natural "rankings" like werewolves did, vampires could still play into those roles. It made even more sense when you considered that most people believed werewolves and vampires were from the same failed spells way back when. 

Reiner snorted and put a hand on my knee. “Am I now?”

My eyes flicked up to his. His touch didn’t feel as welcome as it did on the dancefloor. “Yeah.”

“I’m sure I can show you a good time. Do you wanna get out of here?”

I frowned. “I would, but… How do I know you aren’t one of those murderers?”

“And who would want to hurt such a pretty bird such as yourself?” His other meaty hand trailed over my jawbone. I let him even though I wanted nothing more than to be near the stage--far away from him, that is.

“Who would want to hurt _anybody_?” I inquired innocently.

He straight up laughed at that. “Coming from the vampire.”

I huffed. “You know what I mean.”

“Alright, alright. I’ll bite. You _have_ had another vampire’s blood before, haven’t you?”

_It was starting to rain harder and harder, but my cheeks were already covered with tears. The rip in my chest was beginning to mend as he sank his teeth into my neck. My vision started to blur as he drank, and I would’ve let him suck me dry if he needed it, but hands tore him away from me._

“No.”

He reached up and pulled at the collar of his shirt, exposing his neck. “Do you want to?”

I stared, unable to speak. The primal part of me was completely okay with this, but the deeper part of me--the part that made me _me_ \--was revolted. “I’m okay.”

His eyebrows rose.

“I’m not very hungry,” I amended quickly.

He shrugged and let go of his shirt. “If you say so.”

I glanced at the crush of bodies, feeling drawn to it even more than before. “Do you want to dance again?”

He squinted at me as if wondering whether I was being serious or not. I guess not many people denied him the pleasure of quick and meaningless sex. “Why not?”

We made our way to the middle of the floor, and I let him do what he wanted with me. I hardly felt it--it was like I was in some sort of daze, and I had a good idea of why.

For those of you that are new to the program, I’d already found a mate, and he happened to be my best friend. I was already a vampire at the time, and even though he was a human still, I managed to imprint on him and vice versa. Cases like that are unheard of.

Unless the human is destined to become a vampire as well.

Of course, I ended up turning him when his eldest brother missed me and shot him in the stomach. The bond was inadvertently made stronger when my mate bit me in a bloodlust and ended up marking me by accident. I haven’t marked him, however, so our bond is incomplete. Still, it’s hard to get it on with anybody nowadays--and believe me, I’ve tried. My body generally rejects the feeling of anybody’s hands in a sexual manner. Yay me.

So I was going into the same sort of numbness that came over me every other time somebody tried to touch me. It was for the best, I guess. The last time I tried to truly fight it, I had a minor mental breakdown and had to run from their house as fast as my legs could carry me.

So when I felt a spark of pure electricity on my back, I froze.

Reiner was right in front of me with his hands on my chest, so it couldn’t have been him. I spun around, and one of the dancers from the stage was standing right behind me, staring at me with wide eyes. From way up there, I hadn’t noticed his freckles or brown eyes or the tiny scar on his jaw from when he was six.

His eyes shifted behind me to the person touching me, and I could see the anger sweep over his features. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Reiner stopped touching me. “What do you mean?”

“This isn’t what we’re here for, Reiner.”

My head whipped back and forth between them. “How do you two know each other?”

“We’re partners,” Reiner said in a tone that implied, _Why did it matter to you?_

My heart stopped. Partners? Did that mean like business partners or like…?

“How do you two know each other?” he asked, pointing at both of us and furrowing his brows.

Marco’s eyes flicked over me and then back to Reiner. “Reiner, this is Jean. He’s my creator.”

* * *

There are some things in life that you can predict like the weather or when your period is about to start--according to Mikasa and Historia at least. Me being groped by my mate’s partner is not one of the things I imagined would happen.

At least I now knew why I wanted to be by the stage so much.

“What do you mean, ‘I didn’t know he was one of our employees?’ How do you _not_ know that?” I demanded.

When I finally escaped the dancefloor and stuttered to Levi that Marco was here, he merely nodded slowly and went, “Well. That’s unfortunate.”

Unfortunate.

“I don’t keep track of our employee’s names,” he explained coolly. “I hire other people to do that for me.”

I paced some more around the hotel room. Erwin and Mikasa were off doing their own thing at the moment, so it was just us. “You mean to tell me neither you nor Erwin know any of your employees?” I dug my fingers into my hair. “What the fuck? That’s so messed up! You could have hired a drug addict or even some of the murderers themselves!”

“First off, do you really think drugs are high on a vampire’s list of concerns? Second, we do background checks on each person before they’re hired. If they have a criminal record, we know about it. And third, even if the murderers didn’t have a criminal history, do you really think they’d try to mess with me or Erwin? We have 585 years between us. Taking us on would be suicide.”

“Together, maybe, but what if they, like, got you alone and surprise-jumped you in an alley behind your fancy-dancy club, huh?”

“Are you starting to actually care for me now?” he asked. “‘Cause you probably shouldn’t do that.”

“Oh my _god_ , Levi. Shut the fuck up and _listen_ for a few minutes, will ya?”

He glared at me. “Fine.”

The pieces were clicking in place so fast in my head that I could, ironically, hardly think. “We went to the club to find out more information about the murderers, and who do I end up with? Some random dude that was trying to get me alone who also happened to be my mate’s partner.” My voice broke toward the end, but I plowed through. “I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

I’d always been a tad skeptical when it came to things such a coincidence and fate, and it only got worse once I’d been turned.

He sighed. “I don’t know what to tell you other than we need to follow our leads and go off whatever evidence we’ve collected. No accusations without hard evidence to back them up.”

“But--”

“ _No._ ”

I stomped my foot like a petulant child and grabbed my toiletries bag before going to the bathroom. 22 years old and I still felt like the biggest child in the Midwest.

When I turned the vent on, it droned and made weird noises, but it still couldn’t block out the thoughts and feelings in my head. Angrily, I jerked the knob in the shower on, and water gushed out of the faucet.

One of the extra shitty things about having created a vampire yourself is that you have a bond with the person you turned. Yeah, I had yet _another_ bond to add to the list of shit Marco and I had together.

It’s hard to describe how the progeny bond had been created in the first place. It was like as soon as his undead heart started to beat, I felt it in my own chest but on the other side. It very clearly was not mine, but I felt it nevertheless.

The emotions coming from him were the strongest for the first couple months, and they were tiring to put it lightly. The sheer amount of anger and despair I felt was enough to bring me to my knees. All his hatred seemed to peak when he saw me or felt me get close to him. _Especially_ when I got near him. I knew he needed somebody to blame for this, and instead of blaming his psychotic brother for pulling the trigger, he blamed me.

Part of me didn’t blame him. Even now, I still felt like I deserved to be blamed. It wasn’t until seven or so months after he left that those around me managed to get through my thick skull that I wasn’t at fault for wanting to save my lifelong best friend. Still…

Of course, the bond weakened as time went by, but it was still _there_. Every once in awhile, I could feel his heartbeat flutter in the right side of my ribcage like some sort of restless bird. Sometimes I even managed to forget about him, but a wave of emotion would come over me when that happened. It was like I was doomed to never forget about the man I couldn’t have.

The water streamed over my head and shoulders. Unfortunately, the water pressure was little to none, but there was heat at least.

It was like the moment I touched him at the club, our bond had been renewed, and I could sense his cocktail of emotions. He was confused and angry; restless and in pain. And underneath that whole clusterfuck, I could feel a seed of emotions he simply couldn’t bury: sorrow, attraction, excitement, and more.

I slapped the tile wall and closed my eyes, resting my feverish--for a vampire--forehead against it. _I will not cry. I will not cry,_ I chanted in my head, but water wasn’t supposed to taste like salt.

* * *

As soon as the door slammed behind Jean, Levi sighed and fell backward on the bed. He seriously didn’t get paid enough for this teenage angst shit. He’d been alive for 200 years, and he _still_ couldn’t understand what went on in these kids’ heads. First Mikasa and her relationship with Armin and Eren. Levi wasn’t prejudiced, but werewolves and vampires didn’t hold much of a promise together for a future. Vampires lived longer, for one, and they couldn’t reproduce together, secondly.

But then again, people had been telling him that since he and Erwin started their relationship together. _He’s too old for you. You’re too different. You’re too similar--you’re_ males.

He also didn’t want his daughter to have to experience the heartbreak of losing the mortal, Armin. However, the two boys--men, rather--made her happier than she’d ever been, so Levi did his best to be supportive and open-minded. He was in a similar position once before, after all.

Then there was the angry, young adult in the other room. Levi could smell the agony rolling off Jean through the fucking wall. He still didn’t understand why the two of them couldn’t just get over it and realize what was best for them. In talking to Jean’s friends, he’d learned plenty about Jean and Marco’s relationship growing up. Levi was no romantic, but even he knew when two people belonged together. Though, he had no room to talk what with his rocky relationship with Erwin at the beginning. 

And then there was one of his other daughters who was dating another woman that wanted to get turned as well. Historia promised not to do it until they were older, and Ymir knew all the facts.

In his back pocket, his phone buzzed. Lifting his hips, he dug it out and hit the answer button. “What?”

“Did you find anything?” Erwin asked, his voice reassuring even through the phone.

Levi told him everything they’d found out--which was little to none. Erwin was dead silent when Levi told him about how Jean had found Marco at the club with some other guy.

“Oh,” was all he said.

“ _Oh_ is right, Erwin.” He closed his eyes. Dammit, he was so tired. It’d been too long since he’d had anything to eat. “What are we supposed to do?”

There was a staticky noise, and then Mikasa was on the phone. “Whatever you do, don’t let Marco near Jean. He’s in so much pain, and I can feel all of it.”

“Trust me, kid, I can smell it.”

“We’re just about there. I can handle him.”

“Hurry up,” he said and hung up. Sliding his phone back into his pocket, he rubbed his face. Yeah, he was definitely too old to be dealing with this shit.

* * *

The good thing about being in a hotel was the endless supply of hot water. Showers were one of the few simple joys in my life since they kept me warm when I obviously couldn’t do it myself.

But even then, you had to get out of the water eventually and face the facts. Though, not all of us had to face a hot chick in the bathroom with you.

Sure, normally I’d be over the moon to see a beauty such as this in a restroom just to see me, but this wasn’t some random person. This was my creator and somebody I’d known, adored, and even feared for about four years already. Having her scare the living shit out of me and seeing my dick was equivalent to your mom walking in on you.

“What the fuck are you doing in here?” I yelled at her, yanking the shower curtain back to cover me up. My heart was fucking racing and not in a good way.

“Listening to your pain.” She inspected her fake nails. Stuff like that wasn’t her thing, but she’d gone with Erwin to some other dives around town in search of information and having those blood-red talons was deadly. “And quit acting like that.”

I reached down for my towel and almost slipped and fell face first onto the floor. “Like what?”

“Like you’ve got something I’ve never seen before.” Her stormy gray eyes met mine and she tucked some of her raven black hair behind her ear. She’d gotten it cut from her waist to her shoulders recently to donate it. It was a few inches shorter than it was when we first met. The new hair suited her, I thought.

I wrapped the towel around my waist. “You know, just because you have two guys wrapped around your finger doesn’t mean you have me too.”

Her lips tipped up on one side. “Oh, honey,” she purred, batting her eyelashes. “We all know you were the first.”

“What-fucking-ever.” I rolled my eyes, but it was half-hearted, and we both knew it. I was head-over-heels whipped for her, but it wasn’t one-sided in the least. “Why are you in the bathroom while I’m showering?”

“Because you’re moping like some sort of sappy teenager.”

“Technically, I still am a teenager,” I pointed out.

One of her eyebrows arched. She didn’t find my avoidance tactics amusing, it seemed. “I already know.”

And just like that, any ground I managed to make in terms of my mood was lost. Like some sort of party balloon, I deflated and sat on the edge of the tub. “Oh.” I should’ve known Levi would’ve told her.

She reached out and took my hand. I let her. “It isn’t your fault,” she said firmly. “No matter what he feels or what he says, it wasn’t wrong of you to turn him. It was an instinct, a knee-jerk reaction," she reminded me. I hadn't needed to be reminded in a couple of years at least, but the wounds he left were so easy to tear open. 

“He still hates me, Kasa,” I whispered, unable to look anywhere but at the floor. “He hates me so fucking much. What am I supposed to do?”

“Who said you had to see him again?”

I paused. “I have to. You know I do.”

She sighed and rubbed small, gentle circles into my knuckles with her thumbs. “I know.” And then she leaned forward and pressed a long kiss against my forehead. “Get dried off and come on out.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

She was decent enough to leave so I could get decent myself. I could hear the three of them talking through the wall, but they were quiet enough that I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Damn vampires.

The second I stepped out of the bathroom, their conversations ceased completely. God. Damned. Vampires.

“You don’t look dead,” Levi said ironically.

“Shut up,” I grumbled, snatching the pack of cigarettes off the bedside table and sliding one out. Erwin raised both his eyebrows at that, but I completely ignored him. “I’ll be back in ten.” I didn’t wait for anybody to stop me as I headed out the door.

It wasn’t surprising when I heard somebody follow me. “Slow down,” Mikasa called since I was literally almost all the way down the hall already. In my agitation, I was becoming careless and throwing my superhuman abilities around as if it were normal.

I slowed down.

We walked in silence to the lobby and out the front door--me in my sweatpants, t-shirt, jean jacket, and ratty tennis shoes and her still in her sleeveless, dusty pink, sequined dress that showed off her slim figure and miles of legs. What a pair the two of us made.

“Didn’t know you picked up smoking,” she said when I lit up.

I took a long drag and blew it out slowly. It didn’t make me feel better. “Me neither.”

We leaned against the side of the building. I felt like crying, which was stupid. Why should I be crying over this? He obviously hated my guts, and he’d found somebody else to make him happy. It shouldn’t matter whether I was happy or not. I should be able to put on a brave face and let him live his life. That’s what the bigger person was supposed to do.

The only problem? I’ve always, always, _always_ sucked at being the bigger person.

After taking approximately three drags of that god awful cancer stick, I threw it down and ground it out with my toe. I could feel Mikasa watching me. She was good at shit like that. It was hard to tell what she was thinking half the time. Inscrutable was a good word for her.

“Aren’t you cold?” I finally asked her.

She hiked up one of the straps on her dress that was sliding down. “A little,” she admitted.

I stared up at the sky. “Have you ever seen the part of _That Seventies Show_ where one of the girls gets cold and the guy gives her the jacket, but when the other girl says that she’s cold, the guy goes, ‘Damn, Jackie, I can’t control the weather.’?”

“I think I have.”

“I’d probably be Kelso--the guy that says he can’t control the weather.”

“No, that would be Levi.”

That made me laugh. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.” She took my hand in hers. I held on desperately. If she noticed the slight tremor, she didn't say anything about it. “When’s the last time you’ve eaten anything?”

“I dunno. Couple days, I guess.” Five days to be exact. I should've eaten about two days ago, but I’d been so focused on this case that I actually forgot about my well-being. I should've been able to hold off of eating for a lot longer considering my age, but I'd been set back quite a bit. The fact I'd made it this far was rather impressive.

“You look pale.”

I shot her a sarcastic look. “Do I?”

With her free hand, she punched me in the upper arm. “Shut up, wiseass. You know what I mean.”

I was grinning up at the sky in spite of my shitty attitude. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“What’d he look like? The other guy.”

I sighed. If I was going to talk to anybody, it would definitely be her. “Like a tool. Burly and blond with close-cropped hair. Looked like he was fairly young when he was turned. Hands the size of literal dinner plates. Couldn’t keep his hands off me. Seemed like a complete douche.” I knew I was being too hard on him, especially since I didn’t even know him, but I could only imagine those hands touching Marco.

She _hmm_ ed in agreement. “When did you see Marco?”

I blew some stray hair out of my eyes. “He was one of the dancers, and I didn’t even know it. It wasn’t until he ran into me on the dancefloor that I _felt_ him.” I held my free hand to my chest almost subconsciously.

Her thumb started to rub circles again. I wondered if it was more for her or for me. “And he said they were… partners?” The frown was audible in her voice.

“Yeah, _partners_. Like they were six or something.” I cleared my throat so it wouldn’t break. “Do you think they’re fucking?”

“I don’t know. I’d have to see them together.”

Silence. “I think they are. They seemed closer than just friends, but not quite like they loved being around each other. Marco loved everybody.”

“You know as well as I do that being turned changes people, Jean. He isn’t the same person you knew as a kid.”

I let out a long sigh. “I know.”

We stayed out there for definitely longer than ten minutes. She asked me questions, and I answered them. Not all of them were personal. It was nice, I guess. Somehow, we both ended up going to the same college--it probably had something to do with the fact that it was an amazing university, and it was in-state too--and we saw each other almost once a week. We decided not to live together because while we were both super close, we realized that we needed to have our own lives separate from each other.

We both graduated at the same time, me in a science field, her in Asian studies with an emphasis in Japanese and a teaching certificate, and we didn't get to see each other very often anymore. I still preferred to roam around the midwest even though I had an apartment that I could return to close to our university, and she was student teaching at a high school near the capital. That made our time together even more special.

When it was silent for a few moments, I said, “Has anybody told you that you look beautiful in that dress?”

We looked at each other. “Quite a few, actually, but I feel like you’re the only person that means I look beautiful as a person and not as a sexual object.”

“Mikasa, I feel sorry for the person that tries to take advantage of you.”

She grinned and tugged on my hand. “Let’s go inside.”

So we did.

* * *

When we got back to the room, Erwin and Levi were gone, and there was a note on the table written in Levi’s elegant cursive. _Went to get dinner. Don’t do anything stupid._

Classic Levi for ya.

Mikasa was toeing off her shoes when I picked my phone up off the bed. “Go stand by the wall or something. Eren and Armin should see you in that dress.”

She rolled her eyes and blushed. “Seriously?”

I nodded solemnly. “Seriously.”

With a groan, she relented.

The lighting in the room was kinda shitty, but she still looked stunning even in the picture, so I sent it to both of them before she could tell me not to. She did hit me over the head for it, though.

As she was changing in the bathroom, her phone starting ringing. A cheesy picture of Eren kissing her cheek came up, and I answered it. “Miss Sexy speaking. How may I help you?”

“Jean, you are anything _but_ sexy. Put Mikasa on the phone.”

“Sorry, I can’t. I’m too busy doing a striptease for her. Clothes are just so suffocating, as you know.”

“Hardy har har. If you don’t pu--Armin!”

“Hi, Jean,” Armin chirped. “What’s up with Kasa?”

“She’s just changing her clothes. What’s up with you guys?”

“Nothing much. Eren’s got a--what did he call it?--a boner in his heart from seeing her all dressed up.”

There was some scuffling on their end, and I knew Eren was trying to get the phone away from Armin before he told me anything else worthwhile. I snorted. “I’m sure.” When Mikasa came out of the bathroom, she gave me a questioning look. _The boys,_ I mouthed. She nodded.

“He’s got a real boner too.”

“Way too much information there, Armin. Here’s Mikasa.” I handed the phone to her.

“Hi,” she said.

I could hear both of them chattering excitedly. Hopefully, they put the phone on speaker. Mikasa turned redder and redder the more they complimented her, and Eren even started saying some pretty risque things to put it lightly.

“Eren!” she chided. “Jean can hear everything you’re saying.”

“Who cares? He knows we eat you out anyway.”

I blushed out of secondhand embarrassment. I was also reminded of the time I walked in on them doing some very _not_ vanilla shit in Eren’s room. All I’ll say about it is that Eren was in a dress, Armin was on his knees, and Mikasa was holding a whip like some sort of Dominatrix.

“You’re impossible,” she said, but the grin on her face made me think of what she must’ve looked like as a kid. Kids were strange. They had a way of showing all their uncensored emotions, and it was such a pure thing to see children happy. Pure and unbridled.

“It’s no fair you get to be with them looking like that when you should be with us.”

“Don’t pout.”

“I’ll pout if I damn well please, woman!”

“Are you _wanting_ to get your privileges taken away?” she asked, but there was a coy yet seductive hint to her voice that caused me to raise my eyebrows. _Don’t think about the outfit…_

Unfortunately, her dads walked in right after she said that. Mikasa and I looked at each other, her with wide eyes and me with a _yikes_ face. They were so old that we knew they’d heard it.

“Privileges?” Levi asked.

Mikasa was red. From the other end of the line, I heard Armin say to Eren, “Now, you’ve done it,” but we all knew he wasn’t mad--just embarrassed.

“Like father like daughter,” Erwin sighed, shaking his head. Mikasa and I looked at each other again, and I started laughing so hard I was sure we’d get kicked out.

* * *

I had the dream again. The one I started to have when I got shot.

It always started the same. I’d be walking through a desert, hungry and thirsty, for what felt like hours until I would stumble along an oasis. When I first saw it, it was a tiny thing compared to the whole entire desert, but it was beautiful. It was all fruit trees and cool water and rich, fertile soil. Now, it was almost twice the size.

I loved it here. It was so pure and happy.

Marco was always there, world without end, amen. Sometimes, he’d get there after me, but we always were there together at some point, even if it was just for a moment. He was always happier here, my dream Marco. It was like my mind stripped all his hate away and let me have him for myself. Like he was the person I knew before he knew I was a vampire.

He was already there when I arrived, sitting on the dock and kicking his feet lightly in the water. Yeah, a real dock. I couldn’t remember when it showed up the first time, but I wasn’t about to question my personal dreamscape.

I shoved my hands in the pockets of my jeans--yeah, I now had clothes during these dreams, unlike the first several times; don't even ask--as I approached. His gaze stayed on the crystal clear water. It always made me nervous to try and talk to him because I never knew when the dream was going to turn into a nightmare.

He was the first one to say anything. “Hi,” he said simply, looking up at where I was standing on the shore. His smile was as beautiful as ever, but he still looked troubled.

I waved in reply and joined him on the dock. His hand slipped into mine, and I felt blissfully whole. Ever since he’d run away from me, I had this gap in my chest, and it wasn’t a clean cut either. It was more of a jagged break, like glass. Since it was there all the time, I was used to it already, but whenever I was with him in my dreams, the pain was subdued.

We skimmed our toes over the water and held hands, and for a moment, I felt like I was a real 22-year-old with a boyfriend that I loved dearly. Because I did--love him, that is. I refused to hurt the hunters because they were his family, I left home for six months, I took a bullet, and I turned him all because I loved him.

It would’ve been so much simpler if I was able to move on and forget about him, but we can’t help who we fall in love with, can we?

* * *

You’d think after four years we’d stop ending up like this. Almost every single time I was in that dreamscape, Marco and I ended up doing _something_. Maybe it was because of all that testosterone, or maybe it was because I was so desperate for attention that I pretended Marco actually wanted me.

I was actually ridiculous, I know, but he was so fucking good with his mouth. Kudos to me for making him a literal sex god.

The warm wood was rough against my bare back as Marco hungrily kissed and sucked and bit the side of my neck hard enough to leave marks. With every sweep of his tongue over my skin my body grew warmer and warmer. His thigh was between my legs, and he was grinding it against me mercilessly. At this point, he was just messing with me since he’d opened me up and got me ready quite a while ago.

Being in charge was one of his favorite things to do, but I knew it also drove him up a wall when I switched it up on him. So…

Without warning, I flipped us over and let him fall heavily onto the dock, his breath forcefully knocked out of him. His face was surprised, and I knew I caught him off guard. It made me smirk. Having extra strength had its perks. He _was_ a big guy, after all.

He bared his fangs at me--the ones that’d grown in faster than mine had after I was turned which _wasn’t fair_ \--and it made me laugh out loud. “Don’t even.” I rutted against his leg. “You can’t scare me.”

His hands gripped my waist hard, causing my rhythm to halt. “Don’t make me throw you off this dock.” His deep, rough voice _did things_ to me.

I leaned down and pressed my chest against his. “I fucking dare you.”

Like some sort of child, he growled and made an extremely grumpy face. God. Even when we were having sex he was _still_ cute. This whole tough act thing he was trying to pull? Whatever. I knew he was completely harmless (here at least).

“Uh huh. That’s what I thought.” I nuzzled my face into his neck and licked a slow stripe from where his neck and shoulder met up to his jaw, pausing to suck at his pulse point. His breath stuttered.

“M-mark me.”

I reached behind me and held on to his hard arousal, positioning myself to ride his fucking brains out. “No.”

He whined. “Please. I need it.”

Little did he know, I needed it just as bad as he did, if not more. The hole in my chest was unbearable, but I couldn’t do it like this. If I did, I’d wake up and remember all over again that this wasn’t real life. Marco still hated me, and he still had that other douche to take care of him. If I marked him in my dreams, I’d be ripped to shreds the moment I woke up.

Without answering, I began to take his thick cock slowly, savoring the feel of being filled up. His hands gripped my thighs so hard I thought he might leave bruises. Both of us were panting and moaning, and it was so freaking hot out here. You’d think I could change the temperature since it was _my_ dream.

Finally, finally, _finally,_ I bottomed out and just stayed there, savoring the way he felt inside me. I knew my dream wasn’t just making up how thick he was. I’d been in a locker room with him before. The dude was hung. Plus, he had those long fingers, and you know what they say…

When I felt like I could take it, I ground against him in small circles. I could feel his cock twitching inside me, begging for more stimulation, so I obliged. Slowly, I began to lift my hips and drop them back down. With each thrust, I pulled off a little bit more. His eyes were screwed shut, and he was biting down on his lip, and I could literally see him losing control.

Thank god I didn’t need any lube here or else my asshole would be ripped to fucking shreds.

I’d gotten into a steady rhythm when he opened his eyes and gave me such a wrecked look. As Eren so elegantly put it earlier, my heart got a boner. And we’d just barely started.

Every once in awhile, I’d stop to grind my hips down and squeeze him, eliciting a guttural growl from him. Still, he didn’t move. “Gonna--ah!--gonna help me out here?”

He looked into my eyes and held one of my hands, placing it on his chest. His heartbeat was pounding wildly. “No. It’s much more fun to watch you struggle.”

“Hardy har har.” Asshole. I pulled almost all the way off him and stopped. “It isn’t easy being your human fleshlight, you know.”

With his free hand, he smacked his forehead and rubbed his eyes, but he was shaking his head and grinning. “Always so elegant with your words.” I could feel his dick throb. “It isn’t easy listening to your mouth, you know. _Constantly_ running.”

“Touche.” Slowly, I slid back down again. My fingers traced his collarbone. “Make me be quiet then.”

He squinted. “Is that a challenge?”

“You’re telling me you don’t want to make me moan and gasp your name? What about coming all over your chest, huh? Bet you can’t even hit my prostate.”

“Jean,” he said in a husky voice.

“Too busy thinking about yourself to just throw me on the dock and take me, you selfish prick. I thought you were supposed to be the big bad dom in this relationship. Aren’t you, like, into that sort of stuff?” I lifted and dropped down quickly, and we both moaned loudly. “ _I_ think you’re just too much of a pussy to--”

I was cut off when he abruptly grabbed a fistful of my hair. His eyes had a spark, a burn, and his voice was low, causing my dick to bob. “ _Shut the fuck up._ ”

I swallowed thickly. Oh, sweet Jesus, this was about to get good.

Without warning, he pulled my head down, and our mouths clashed together. His hips canted up, making me bottom out the rest of the way very suddenly mid-thrust. All the noises I made as he pounded into me were lost in his mouth. He took them all.

I still didn’t shut up, though. I  _couldn't_. Incoherent babbles fell from my lips like I was some sort of elderly person that couldn’t control myself. The moment he hit my prostate, I cried out and keened, “Marco! Ah, baby, right theeerrreee!”

He grinned devilishly and flipped us over again so he could drill into me. I was shaking and fucking screaming at how good he was, at how amazing he made me feel. My own cock was bouncing with every thrust, and precome was leaking onto my stomach.

His thrusts became erratic and harder, and I knew he was so close. The more I blathered and whined and gasped his name the more it seemed to spur him on, and before I knew it, he was burying himself deep inside me and crying out _my_ name.

I squeezed him as he kept thrusting and riding his orgasm out. As if he sensed how close I was, he reached down and took my dick in his rough palm and delivered several hard, quick strokes that finished me off.

We gripped each other and held on tight as we came down from our orgasms. The beat of our hearts was audible in the warm air, and our breaths were slowly becoming even again. I knew I’d end up having to deal with my own personal emotional aftermath, but I wanted to stay in this hazy pleasure for just a little longer.

Besides, I had to deal with Marco and the fangs he had buried in my neck right now. I hadn’t even noticed when he bit me.

He was still rocking slightly, but it seemed less for orgasm purposes and more for energy release purposes--like jiggling your knee. Tingles ran through me at the slow, lazy way he was sucking my neck. The part of me that was his creator was soaring because I was taking care of my progeny, and the part that was his mate was blissed out from the mind-blowing sex and the fact that we were halfway through the bonding process yet again.

I wrapped my legs around his waist, not wanting him to pull out quite yet, and rubbed big circles on his back. His skin was warm, and I could feel the strength in his muscles beneath my palm. My eyes were growing heavy, but I fought it. I didn’t want to miss a single moment with him.

What felt like an hour later, his feeding slowed to a stop, and he gingerly pulled his fangs out so as not to hurt me. I tilted my head to the side to allow him to lazily lick the side of my neck clean. Sometimes, he reminded me of a cat, especially after he’s had his way with me. He became so sated and loving and caring. Heart boner round two, am I right?

When he pulled back, he looked at me and licked his lips, quirking an eyebrow when my legs tightened around his waist. We looked down at where we were connected and back up at each other. He blushed a deep shade of red, and I laughed, reaching down between us to touch the place where his cock was firmly buried in my ass.

“Jean, I think I should, uh…”

“No.” My fingers skimmed over the soft skin he had down there. “I like you here like this.”

Somehow, he managed to blush even more. “Isn’t it uncomfortable?”

The corner of my mouth curled. “You’re bottoming next time.”

He rolled his eyes but didn’t argue with me.

I let my head rest on the dock. Yikes, I hope I didn’t get any splinters from being manhandled. “You ever heard of mpreg?”

He blinked. “Yeah. You’re not pregnant, are you?”

With a shake of my head, I laughed a little. “No, no. It’s just that Levi was trying to gross me out once, and he told me that vampires used to be able to get pregnant-- _all_ of them. It was some sort of survival thing. Like how in nature more offspring are born than are likely to survive. That sort of thing.” I wiggled my hips. “I think that’s why this is so… I don’t know. Nice?”

Marco leaned down and carefully scooped me up. I gripped his shoulders tight. “What are you doing?”

He chuckled. “Calm down, princess. I’m taking us somewhere more comfortable.” And he fucking _stood up while I was still sitting on his dick._

“ _Jesus_! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Just shut up and trust me, will ya?”

Grumbling, I let my head fall against his shoulder as he walked. When his feet hit the sand, I began kissing his collarbone with an open mouth, and I was pleased to find that his dick gave an interested twitch inside me. “Gee, looks like somebody didn’t get enough.”

“Gee, I thought I told you to shut up.”

I snorted and nipped his ear in retaliation.

As he lowered us into the sand under the shade of a palm tree, I laughed and left sloppy kisses up and down his neck. He stayed patiently nestled inside me until I drove him crazy enough for him to make sweet, gentle love to me.

* * *

He didn’t bottom. Maybe next time.

* * *

Wet dreams were fun and all until you had to wake up. Especially when you woke up and remembered that you were in bed with somebody else. What’s worse was the fact that half the blood in my body was still pooled between my legs, and Mikasa was pressed against my side.

“Fuck,” I breathed.

On the bright side, it didn’t feel like I jizzed in my pants this time.

Biting my lip hard, I tried my best to slide out of her grip which wasn’t easy. She didn’t look like much, but she was a hardcore cuddler, and she was _strong_ too. Finally, I was able to ease off the bed and scramble to the bathroom.

I shut the door as quietly as I could and flicked on the light to assess the damage. There was a decent-sized wet spot on the front of my underwear and a definite tent as well. As it was, I could take a cold shower or I could just jerk it out. With a sigh, I stripped down and started the shower.

* * *

“Somebody wake that kid up. I don’t know what he’s dreaming about, and I don’t care, but he’s gotta stop making this place reek.”

“Don’t wake him up.”

I sighed silently and shifted. My damn arm was asleep.

“Whatever. I’m going to get breakfast. Call me when it doesn’t smell like some sort of whore house.” He walked toward the door.

“Levi,” Erwin said sternly. “Quit acting like that. It’s unnecessary.”

“ _Don’t_ tell me what to do.”

The air was heavy and pressed down on my back. Whatever pleasantness I was feeling from my dreams was certainly gone now. “I’m not. You’re being nasty and crude, and it isn’t needed.”

There was a scoff, and the door opened. From what I could hear, Levi left, and Erwin went after him. When the door clicked shut, the silence was deafening.

Mikasa sighed long and slow and started to mess with my hair. “He’s just jealous that you’re getting more action than he is.”

That made me snort despite how hurt and angry Levi’s comments made me. “Is it really that bad?”

“No, not really. He’s just…” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I think there’s something else bothering him.”

I shifted and rested my head on my good arm to look at her. “Still not an excuse to be a dick.”

She inclined her head. “You’re right.”

My stomach growled before I could think of anything else to say, and I winced. It’d been six days now since I’d eaten. When I was first turned, I could scarcely go twelve hours without having something in my system due to all the changes going on--similar to the way teenagers eat all the time because of their growth spurts--but now I could go a week at most without anything at all. Mikasa could go about two weeks, Levi about a month, and Erwin almost three whole months. I was jealous as hell.

“How long did you say it’s been since you’ve eaten anything?” Mikasa asked, giving me a stern, motherly look.

“Um…” I grinned sheepishly at her. “A few days.”

“How long is a few days?”

“Six,” I answered reluctantly.

“You’re an actual idiot, I hope you know that.”

I shrugged. Yeah, we both knew I was aware.

Standing up, she held her hand out for me to take. “Come on. Let’s go get some breakfast, and we’ll find you some blood when we get home.”

With a huff, I took her hand and let her pull me up. “I’m not a little kid,” I grumbled.

She nudged me with her shoulder and went to the bathroom while I put on something more acceptable.

* * *

Levi and Erwin weren’t at breakfast. I didn’t know where they’d gone to, but I really didn’t care.

* * *

I thanked whatever god was watching over us that we’d brought two cars because it was eleven, and my supernatural grandparents were nowhere to be found. They weren’t answering my calls or texts, and it was the same with Mikasa. We both finally decided to load our car up with all our stuff, check out, and go home. They had their own car--which was gone from the parking lot, by the way--and they were big boys. They could handle themselves.

Another thing I was thankful for? Mikasa let me drive. I’m not a control freak by any means--not since I’d gotten turned and had to learn to let shit go--but if there’s one thing I hate, it’s having to sit in the passenger seat while somebody else drives. They could be the best, safest, most amazing driver ever, but if my hands aren’t on that wheel, I get nervous as hell. I also end up feeling trapped if I’m somewhere without my own car. It probably wasn’t what a healthy person would normally experience, but I figured it was a small price to pay after all the shit I'd been through. 

The place was only two hours away from home, but since it was so late, we’d decided to get a hotel. When they told me that was what we were doing, I’d thought it was stupid since we could take shifts driving home, but after the fiasco last night, I was grateful for a full night of sleep.

Our ride home was uneventful other than when I got off at a wrong exit, and we had to backtrack. Occasionally, my mind would trail to Marco no matter how hard I tried not to think about him.

I wondered how he’d been living so close to me, and I never knew it. Out of the whole world, he was merely a couple of hours away. It was baffling to me. I thought about Reiner, and my chest tightened when I thought about him and Marco together. Them doing mundane things such as going to the grocery store or having McDonald’s late at night. Things _I_ used to do with him like going to the movies or walking around town when there was literally nothing else to do.

Did they live together? Were they sleeping together? Did Marco know how Reiner liked his coffee? Or what sorts of things irritated him?

Popping my neck a billion times, I pulled off into a gas station and pulled some cash out of my wallet from a cup holder. Mikasa was asleep, but if she were awake, I knew she’d be looking at me in that way like she knew exactly what I was thinking. With a huff, I set the wallet back down and went inside.

As I stared down a whole wall of caffeinated drinks, I rubbed at my jaw and remembered how it felt when Marco sucked on my skin there in my dreams--swore I could feel the bruises under my skin. What was he doing now? Was that body paint hard to get off? Did he like working there where faceless people looked at his body for entertainment? Was that where he met Reiner?

My stomach growled again, and I wondered how long Marco could go without eating. He was already four years old in vampire years. Probably three days, if I had to guess, but I figured he pushed his luck all the time. Did he like drinking his partner’s blood when he got hungry? What if he let Reiner mark him? Could that affect whatever supernatural bonds were between us? God, what if I was feeling _Reiner_ whenever I thought I was feeling Marco because they were mated or something?

With a frustrated and slightly pissed growl, I yanked open the door and grabbed two cans of coffee and let the door shut behind me. The lady behind the counter gave me a funny look when I set them down in front of her, but she must’ve had some common sense because she didn’t say anything to me other than to have a good day.

When I got back in the car, I was careless and slammed the door behind me. I winced--I valued my car, thank you very much--and Mikasa woke up. “What are you doing?” she asked me groggily.

I put the car in reverse and headed toward the highway again. “Just got a drink ‘s all.”

She closed her eyes again but reached out and took my hand again. “That door didn’t do anything to you.”

“Yeah. I know. Sorry for waking you up.”

She smiled a little and squeezed my hand. “Don’t do it again.”

“Yes, _Mom_.”

When she hit my chest, I laughed and patted her hand.

* * *

“When are you coming home?” my mom asked me for the billionth time.

“I probably won’t be home for another couple weeks, Mom,” I told her. Little did she know, I was a block and a half away. Despite having been turned, I still began college. The beginning was a huge struggle, but I’d managed to make connections with other vampires there that could supply me with blood and helped me suppress any urges I had. It was nice, and sometimes they would help me study. Because of their help and my determination, I graduated just before summer began this year. 

Now, I’ve got a bachelor’s degree in science that focuses on biology, and I traveled around to bigger cities around the Midwest to try and figure out a cure for vampirism. I had a feeling that there was some higher being at play, and a cure was simply never going to be found, but I wasn’t just going to sit around and do nothing. You’d be surprised at how many others were searching too.

Since I’d graduated, I hadn’t come home very often. I tended to camp out. Something about being inside the home the old me used to live in made me claustrophobic sometimes. When it got unbearably cold, I’d stay with people I knew and trusted. Or I just slept in the day.

Holidays were the main times I came home, and Thanksgiving was a few days away anyway. It was perfect timing that I had to come back and help find a murderer--or several. No biggie.

Her sigh was audible over the line. “You’d better be home for Christmas. We all miss you.”

I pulled out in front of the house and parked. Their cars were there. Perfect. “Okay, Mom. I will. I gotta go. Work and all. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay, Jean. Be careful, please. I don’t wanna lose my oldest son again,” she joked, making me roll my eyes. It was an old joke between us since I’d literally died, and she hadn’t known about it. She used to be appalled that I would even say something like that, but she'd loosened up over the years. “I love you.”

“Love you too. Bye.” The line went dead.

I couldn’t help but grin. Boy, was she going to be surprised.

* * *

Percy answered the door when I knocked, and we both grinned when we saw each other. After I started college, the kid grew like a weed, and he was as tall as I was by the time he started his junior year. Now, he was a senior, and while he still retained his cute, boyish looks, he was much more mature and  _much_ more handsome. I was ecstatic when he told me he was going to go to college for music on the piano. Connie literally cried when Percy told him. 

“Mom!” he called out.

“What is it, baby? I’m busy.”

“You’re gonna wanna come down here. It’s an emergency. Bring Dad. ”

She came around the corner a few minutes later, and the second she saw me, she started to cry. Yeah, I’d say she was surprised.

* * *

Later that night, I was laying in my bed in the room I’d had since I was in kindergarten and stared at the ceiling. A feeling of nostalgia washed over me. The room hadn’t been slept in regularly for almost five years, but it was still the same. I felt like a juxtaposition. This room didn’t belong to _me_ , per se, but it was still mine. Like some sort of alternate reality.

Everybody else was asleep already. Their soft breathing could be heard through the walls. I remembered how my skills were when I left, and I compared them to what they were like now. My ears picked up on all our house’s groans and creaks while my eyes were so well-adjusted that I didn’t need to turn a light on to see anything--it was clear as day.

Some other things weren’t because I was a vampire, though. Sure, they’d moved the couches around downstairs, but I could remember how to navigate the house even though it’d been so long. I knew where all the loud squeaks in the floorboards were, and I knew where the heaters were at against the floor in the kitchen. It was still ingrained in me.

I was on the verge of falling asleep when I heard my phone vibrate on my nightstand. With a groan, I rubbed my eyes and grumbled, “Eren, if that’s you, I swear to god…”

**From: Marco**

**We should talk.**

The breath was quite literally robbed from my lungs. I’d kept my phone number the same even after all these years in the hopes that this might happen, but I certainly never expected these circumstances.

But then another thought occurred to me: He never changed his number either. After the first couple of days, I thought he’d changed his number, so he wouldn’t have to hear from me or any of us ever again. That meant he was ignoring all the calls and texts and voicemails I’d sent asking--no, _begging_ \--for him to come home for all these years.

He knew how I felt, and he didn’t care.

I told him how much I loved him and how much it would’ve killed me if I’d sat there and watched him die.

He _knew_ I’d been letting my feelings eat me alive for years, and he _didn’t care._

All that anger I thought I’d gotten rid of came rushing back. I felt like that same high schooler that died right after passing 11th grade. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so out of place anymore.

**To: Marco**

**Why should we? You’ve ignored me this long. Why stop now?**

Biting my lip hard enough to draw blood--not hard to do with fangs, to be honest--I let my phone fall out of my hand onto my comforter because I knew if I’d kept holding onto it, I’d crush it.

My breath went in and out of my lungs harshly. I was going to cry soon; I just knew it. My hands formed fists repeatedly. Suddenly, the sounds of life around me were too much. I was going into sensory overload.

My phone lit up and started buzzing. Luckily, I checked the caller ID before I threw it out a window. “What?” I growled.

“What’s wrong?” Mikasa asked. “You’re… you… What is it?”

I stood and paced around my room much faster than a human could’ve. “M-Marco texted me, and it was from his old phone. He n-never changed his number, and he _ignored me_ for _how many years_? I sat and stewed and festered because I thought--” I squeezed my eyes shut and covered my face with my free hand. “I thought he had never seen what I had to say, a-and he had no way to contact me, but he’s had my number this _whole time_ and never once thought to talk to me.”

“Come over, Jean, please. Stay here tonight with us.”

I knew the “with us” meant Armin and Eren, and I felt a pang in my stomach knowing that I’d probably ruined their night, but I rubbed my face and took a deep breath. It was apparent I was spiraling down into my old habits quickly, and I needed to stop myself. If she hadn’t wanted me to come over, she wouldn’t have asked me to.

“Are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m still here,” I replied. “I’ll be there soon.”

“Come right in when you get here. The door will be unlocked.”

“Okay, I will. I’m sorry,” I said because I just… couldn’t help myself.

“There’s no need to be sorry,” she replied before she ended the call, and I started to gather some clothes for the next morning.

* * *

Mikasa looked down at her phone and bit her lip while Armin and Eren both watched her with various levels of concern. Her heart--or rather, the impression she got of Jean’s heart--beat rapidly in her chest. She hadn’t felt anything this strong from Jean for a long time. _It’s because we’ve been closer together in the past few days than we have for a long time,_ she thought. _Probably._

“What’s up?” Eren asked, taking her hand.

She squeezed it and leaned against him. “Marco texted Jean from the same number he’s always had.”

“He never changed it?” Armin asked.

“I guess not.” She shrugged. “Jean’s pretty upset, as he should be. You saw what sort of things he’d sent to Marco even months after he was gone.”

She heard a small growl build up in Eren’s throat. Eren and Armin still loved Marco as a friend as far as she knew, but she also knew that they weren’t too impressed with the decisions he’d made. Between hunting Jean like some sort of wild animal for the better part of a year and leaving the moment he knew he could be around others without wanting to drain them, there was a lot to be upset about.

Merely six months after Marco was turned, he left in the middle of the night without a trace. He took everything he could and vanished. Jean was obviously a wreck, and it took a month at least to get Jean to go a day without crying or panicking.

For being such good friends most of their lives, Marco fucked Jean over pretty bad, and that wasn’t something Mikasa was going to forget anytime soon. Jean was basically her child after all.

“Do you think he’ll come back?” Armin asked. 

“I don’t know, honestly.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “I… kind of hope he doesn’t.”

Eren sighed behind her, and Armin grimaced. As much as they hated to admit it, they were thinking the same thing.

“Why is he suddenly wanting to talk now? That’s what I don’t get. Is it because they met at the club, or it is because of something else? As far as we all know, he hates Jean. Why suddenly come back?”

“Maybe it’s connected to the murders,” Eren supplied. “Like some sort of revenge plot he’s been planning for years. He _was_ a hunter before being turned against his will.”

Mikasa pinched her lower lip in thought. “It’s possible.” His logic certainly wasn’t off. Being turned did do things to people. Mikasa and Eren both knew that.

Armin sighed and leaned against Mikasa’s other side. She instinctively brought a hand up to brush through his hair. At first, she got insecure because Eren and Armin had known each other for way longer, and she thought she was going to be left out in their relationship, but they shared everything with her from inside jokes to baggy shirts. Never had she felt left out, and as the years passed, she found that she loved these boys more and more.

She pecked the top of Armin’s head and Eren’s scratchy jaw--werewolves had so much fucking _hair_ \--and pulled them closer to her. No matter what would happen, she wasn’t going to let _any_ of her loved ones get hurt on her watch. Not even Ymir.

* * *

When I got to the Ackerman-Smith house, I went inside and made my way up to Mikasa’s room. She was sitting on the bed with Eren and Armin on either side of her, and they were hugging. As soon as she saw me, she opened her arms, and I crawled into them and cried.

It might’ve been weird to somebody if they’d walked in and seen us, but Eren and Armin had been my friends for literally ever, and Mikasa was my supernatural parent. They were my family. My chosen family.

I didn’t always see the similarities between werewolves and vampires despite the theory that they were created the same way--familiars gone wrong--but in times like these, I could feel how we were connected. After all, werewolves weren’t the only supernatural pack creatures in existence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments? Kudos? First-born children? All will suffice.


	3. Memories: something remembered from the past; a recollection.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I knew. Honestly, I should've seen this coming sooner. Like a ghost--a memory--my greatest fears and regrets were brought back. 
> 
> "And isn't this exactly where you'd like me  
> I'm exactly where you'd like me, you know  
> Praying for love in a lap dance and paying in naivety  
> Oh, and isn't this exactly where you'd like me  
> I'm exactly where you'd like me, you know  
> Praying for love in a lap dance and paying in naivety"  
> "But It's Better If You Do" by Panic! At The Disco
> 
> "What have I done?  
> With my heart on the floor  
> I must be out of my mind  
> To come back begging for more"  
> "Litost" by X Ambassadors
> 
> "Cause the hardest part of this  
> Is leaving you."  
> "Cancer" by My Chemical Romance
> 
> (Edit: When you can't pick just one angsty song to properly represent a chapter.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry in advance. Please don't kill me. 
> 
> Thank you to all that are still reading even though the updates are very inconsistent. Finals just got over, and I passed my AP Calculus class with a 91%. That's all that matters, tbh. If anybody tells you to take calculus, tell them to politely go fuck themselves. It's the product of trigonometry and algebra ugly/hate fucking in the bathroom of a bar while somebody is shooting up in the next stall over. Don't do it. You've been warned. 
> 
> Playlist (It's super long since I forgot to put all the ones from the last chapter on there)  
> 100 Letters by Halsey  
> A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More "Touch Me" by Fall Out Boy  
> Jet Pack Blues by FOB  
> But It's Better If You Do by Panic! At The Disco  
> Who Knew by P!nk  
> You Don't Care For Me Enough To Cry by John Moreland  
> Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons  
> Riverside by Agnes Obel  
> Fake You Out by twenty one pilots  
> Cancer by My Chemical Romance  
> Too Much To Ask by Niall Horan  
> Litost by X Ambassadors  
> Release by Imagine Dragons  
> Battle Cry by ID

During the night, I didn’t dream of Marco. I didn’t dream of anything. Never had I ever been so happy to be enveloped with darkness.

* * *

When I woke up, it was much more peaceful than the morning before. There wasn’t a short, angry man yelling at me for starters. I was on a blow-up bed that was next to Mikasa’s since her bed might’ve been just big enough to allow three people to sleep but certainly not four. Next to me was Armin, and he was snoring softly while Eren honked like some sort of freight train on the bed next to Mikasa. Early morning sunlight streamed in through the window like liquid gold, and bright colors danced across the sky.

I rubbed my eyes and sat up carefully so as not to disturb Armin (he didn’t even so much as twitch). When I moved, the room tilted a little, and I had to close my eyes again to avoid dry-heaving. “Oh my god,” I groaned into the silence.

Somehow, I managed to get out of bed and into the hallway without running into anything or waking the other three up. However, the stairs seemed to grow longer the more I stared at them. Very slowly, I reached down and took my socks off--hazards of being near starvation is the fact that you’re always on the verge of freezing to death--throwing them down to the bottom of the stairs.

We won’t go over how I got to the bottom, but it involved sitting, scooting, many pauses when I felt like throwing up, and a fair amount of cursing. I was honestly surprised nobody heard me. At least I had my fuzzy socks waiting at the bottom for me.

When I finally made it to the kitchen, I swung open the fridge door and opened one of the bottom drawers that held their blood bags. I picked up the first three I could get my hands on. Only one of them was A- but whatever. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Closing the door again, I sat down on the floor and leaned back against the counter. This wasn’t the first time I’d been in a state of near-starvation, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. While I was in college, the people I’d met taught me tactics to keep from completely letting the bloodlust win. It was nowhere near easy, but I managed.

I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. Then another. And another. The smell of the blood was making my eyes water, but I wasn’t going to drink it. Not yet, anyway. I had to get used to smelling it first. If I’d tried to rip the bag open and drink from it right away, I’d probably blackout for a few minutes, not gonna lie. I wouldn’t be able to make any lasting damage on anybody in the house--except Armin, maybe--but it was always embarrassing to wake up after slipping into a state of bloodlust. Like a toddler having a temper tantrum.

The bag was heavy and cool in my hands. They were different from when I’d first been turned. It was like somebody finally realized that keeping blood in the same kinds of bags they came donated in--I hoped--was a dead giveaway. Now, they were shaped like a Capri Sun pouch, and there was even a straw if you didn’t want to twist the cap on and off again. Nothing like turning a kid’s snack into some sort of macabre joke.

As soon as I was sure I’d be able to control myself and not spill blood over me, I popped the top off the first packet, deciding to save the A- for last. My fangs were already pressed against my bottom lip in anticipation.

“You aren’t going to lose control,” I told myself aloud. “You’re gonna drink what you need and nothing more.”

My stomach growled in reply. I sighed and brought the rim up to my lips.

As expected, it was extremely sweet--one of the reasons why any B type blood was kind of shitty in my opinion--and my salivary glands went into overdrive. To keep from thinking about how amazing it felt to have some sort of blood in my mouth, I pressed my back against the cabinet, letting the designs press into my skin.

Our saliva has some sort of enzymes that serve several purposes. The first is to clot the blood when we’re done feeding so the host doesn’t die, and the second is a sort of painkiller. The third is a sedative so the host doesn’t try to fight back, and the fourth thing it does is signal the body to produce more red blood cells and provide sugars. Sure, we’re parasites, but at least we take care of our victims. Sort of like a fucked-up sugar daddy situation, amiright?

Before I knew it, the first packet was gone. I twisted the lid back on and set it down before rubbing my eyes. It would take an hour or so for it to really kick in, but at least I wasn’t completely starving anymore. Another plus about the new design was that there was about eight ounces more than before. God bless.

The second packet went much better than the first. I was able to take my time drinking it for the most part instead of downing it like a man who’d been wandering in the desert without water for a week--metaphors intended. By the time I was on the third one, I was able to stand up and lean against the counter to sip it. The fact that it was A- made holding back a bit difficult, but I managed.

Fun fact about A- blood: Eren had A-. Yep, that’s right. I nearly ate him one time in the very beginning. If I’d been given another week, I most definitely would’ve. You could say that was when we got closer. Sure, we used to fight all the time and then became friends throughout our lives, but our traumatic supernatural experiences as we were being turned and our struggles really brought us together. We were comrades through our pain and suffering. _The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,_ and all that jazz.

Another not-so-fun fact? Marco has A- blood too. Cue the laugh track.

Still, you can’t fight your biology. I knew that Marco’s blood type was part of the reason why I preferred it, but I couldn’t very well do anything about it. It was like trying to convince yourself you weren’t bi when you very obviously got a hard-on just thinking about sucking another dude’s nipples.

Not saying I’ve been there or anything. Ha, ha! Certainly not _me!_

Whatever. Quit looking at me like that.

Armin and Eren came into the kitchen as I was chewing on the mouthpiece of the packet in contemplation. “You look better,” Eren said by way of a greeting. “Less like a corpse.”

“Gosh, thanks, Jaeger. You really know how to make a guy feel special.” I rolled my eyes and took a slow drink.

He shrugged and moved to make coffee.

Armin jabbed Eren in the side. Eren just grunted. “Good morning, Jean,” Armin said. “You do look like you feel better.”

I jumped up to sit on the counter. “I just finished off two blood bags. I _feel_ better.”

Eren scratched his prickly jaw and eyed my bag in my hands. “That’s a lot. How long did you wait?”

“Not long,” I lied, realizing it was a mistake sharing too many details.

He raised an eyebrow at me and stared with those stupidly bright green eyes. We stared at each other until my eyes felt like they were gonna shrivel up, but he still didn’t blink. “ _What_?” I demanded.

“How. Long?”

“A week,” I mumbled, sucking on the plastic and looking at the floor.

He sighed and went back to prepping the coffee. “Why so long?”

“I dunno.” I shrugged and chewed. “Got busy, I guess.”

“So you just forgot to eat and take care of yourself?”

“Yeah,” I replied lamely.

He grunted in response.

Armin cleared his throat. “Jean, I know you don’t want to have anything to do with him, but we… really need to contact Marco. He might be connected to the murders somehow.”

Even though I wasn’t freaking out like last night--something I probably could’ve avoided if I’d just eaten something, I mused--it still hurt when he mentioned Marco’s name. “Yeah,” I replied breezily. “Do what you have to.”

He looked at me steadily with those eyes that seemed to peer right through my facade of calm to analyze all my insecurities and fears, but he didn’t push anything. “We’ll talk to Erwin and Levi about last night when we’re all together, and we can come up with a response.”

God bless Armin for knowing how to keep a level head in this. “Okay,” I replied because I had no idea what else to say.

He patted my knee with a bright smile, and I couldn’t help but give him a small smile back. Armin was nice to have around because he had a way of comforting people without being condescending. It was a relief.

Moments later, coffee was being brewed, and I was helping Armin make breakfast. Vampires and werewolves required a high-protein diet and a ton of food, so we were making two pounds of bacon, at least a pound of sausage, a dozen or so fried eggs, and toast. Four years ago, I would’ve thought we were trying to feed an army, but now, I knew three of us could finish this off by ourselves--albeit with difficulty. Plus, we _were_ like an army in a way.

Once the smell of bacon was wafting up the steps, Historia found her way down to the kitchen. She didn’t look much different from when we first met, but I knew differently. Dhampirs eventually lose the human part of them as they grow older, and her human half was almost completely gone now. Instead, a stunning vampire with baby blue eyes, shiny blonde hair, and pale, even skin remained. “Morning,” she chirped, braid swaying behind her.

“Morning, Tory,” I said with a wave.

She brightened even more when she saw me. “Jean! When did you get back?” Without a moment’s hesitation, she bounded forward and hugged my waist.

I reached around her and squeezed. “Last night.”

“It’s good to see you again! Ymir missed you too, but she’ll deny it until the day she dies.”

“Typical.” I pulled back and nudged her shoulder with my hand. “Wow, you got tall,” I joked.

She pursed her lips and squinted at me. “For your information, I grew two inches, thank you very much.”

“That’s what I said, princess.” I grinned mischievously.

With a roll of her eyes, she started to set the table. “And to think I missed you.”

I shook my head affectionately and went back to the dangerous task of tending to the bacon.

After another few moments, Mikasa came down, completely showered and dressed while the rest of us were still in our pajamas. She boosted herself up onto the counter beside the stove and took in the sight of all of us. “You look more alive, Jean,” she said finally.

I grumbled while Eren laughed. “Shut up.”

The front lock turned, and all our conversation came to a halt while we looked at each other in panic mode. Luckily, it wasn’t a murderer because we could hear Levi swearing at Erwin for something or other. As soon as the first _fuck_ floated over the threshold, we all relaxed.

Erwin entered the kitchen as Historia started to pour glasses of orange juice. His eyes swept over all of us, and he seemed satisfied after a headcount. “Sorry we’re late for breakfast. There was a meeting with Midwest council we needed to attend. Emergency and confidential.”

For those of you new to this, the main headquarters for the vampirian government is in Transylvania, but there are certain things you’re required to do in an official office, such as getting registered. This is extremely difficult to do for most of us, so to make it easier, other branches opened all over the world. The Midwest council is a board made up of delegates from the councils in each state in the Midwest. The same applies to each region of the U.S. and so on up to the delegate that goes to Transylvania from America.

These meetings are usually held to discuss all the normal stuff that a government needs to talk about, but they do occasionally have emergency meetings that the people attending are informed of up to a week prior to make arrangements. It isn’t required for each of the people invited to attend due to the short notice, but it’s highly recommended.

As far as I know, Erwin and Levi were part of some council or another for a really long time--in positions of importance, even--before they bowed out in order to raise Historia and help Mikasa. Still, they got called to all the emergency meetings since the had so many years between them and usually knew what they were doing.

It explained Levi’s shitty mood, but I still wasn’t about to get all buddy-buddy with him right away. He didn’t have to be such an asshole about it.

“Was it about the murders?” I asked.

He nodded and lowered himself into his seat at the table. As he rubbed his eyes, I saw some of his age and fatigue coming through--two things I hardly ever saw. I guess stressing about murder without a cause among your own race was tiring. Who woulda guessed?

“What’d they say?”

He folded his hands in front of himself as he played with his thumbs and stared off in thought. “They know about as much as we do, but there have been more two more murders since the other day.” His expression was dark. “And they happened closer to home.”

The kitchen went silent except for the sounds of food cooking. We all looked at each other, and even though nobody said anything, we were all thinking the same thing: _Are they following us? And if so, who do they want?_

“Marco contacted me,” I said, shattering the tense silence.

Levi’s eyebrows raised slightly as he poured himself a cup of coffee. There were bags under his eyes, and he looked extra pale as if he hadn’t eaten recently either. “For what?”

“He wanted to talk.” I dug my fingers into the underside of the edge of the counter. “I don’t know what about. I haven’t exactly tried to, um, answer him.”

Erwin nodded and accepted the mug Levi held out to him. “I think we need to have a talk with him.” His eyes met mine, but they weren’t commanding. “You can be there or not, it’s up to you, but I think it would be best to hear what he has to say. He might know something we don’t.” It was almost like he was asking me for permission.

Sucking the last of my blood packet down and throwing it away, I shrugged. “Whatever. He’s his own person.” Mikasa, Eren, Historia, and Armin all looked at each other knowingly, and I pointedly ignored it.  

“Besides,” Levi said. “There’s no such thing as coincidences. Not in this world.”

As much as I hated it, I had to agree with him.

* * *

It was decided that to avoid any complications, Armin would text Marco from his own phone and tell the rest of us what he said. Out of all of us, Armin was the most neutral since Eren could get a bit of a temper. I wasn’t sure how he felt about the whole thing, but I do remember him being upset when Marco left to say the least. Even since we were little, Armin has been more of a neutral party, and this situation definitely called for that.

All of us were sitting at the table. Breakfast had been finished and cleared off the table already. The air still smelled like bacon. Or maybe the smell just stuck to our clothes.

I waited with baited breath as Armin typed out a text. Was it getting hot in here? “‘Marco, this is Armin,’” he began to read. “‘What did you need to talk about with Jean?’”

When we were all in agreement, he hit send. We didn’t have to wait very long for a response. “‘What I want to talk to Jean about is between us,’” Eren read from over Armin’s shoulder.

 _Oh god. It’s something personal. It’s probably about_ us. Was I ready to talk to him about us as… whatever we were? No, not really. I’d probably never be ready. All I could see was me seeing him for the first time after everything that’d happened. I could hear the disgust and hurt and anger in his voice as he told me he hated me and wished I’d died for real instead of being turned. Our last conversation where I rubbed all his hidden feelings in his face. The pain I’d felt every time he looked at me with such hatred and barely concealed lust was a tangible thing, and I felt it again sitting at the dining room table.

“Tell him that I refuse to talk to him about anything, then.” I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair, determined to keep my emotions in check. If I couldn’t keep myself calm there was no way I’d be able to survive until he was out of my life again. “If he has anything important to say, he needs to say it now. Tomorrow, I’m going to go change my phone number so he can’t reach me again.”

Armin nodded and started tapping furiously. Moments later, his phone dinged. “He said that he thinks he has some information on the murders.” Eren and Armin made eye contact over Armin’s shoulder before they looked at me again. I could tell they were withholding info.

“Go on. Spill before I take your phone.”

“Uh.” Eren scratched the back of his neck. “He said he’s going to call you on your bluff.”

My heart squeezed painfully. We’d been friends for years. Of course he’d know that I’m a total flake. “Ask him what information he has.”

Another heavy pause. “He said he thinks he knows what the murderer is after.” Armin squinted at another text that came in. “‘The bodies have all been at least a hundred years or older. The killer is going after old vampires as a display of power, and who are the two oldest vampires we know?’”

All eyes fell on Erwin and Levi. Levi nodded and sipped his coffee, unbothered and unsurprised. Erwin took Levi’s hand. Despite his outward appearance, I noticed the way Levi squeezed Erwin’s hand in a white-knuckle grip. “We suspected,” he said slowly.

Mikasa stood and put both palms on the table, staring at her parents. “You suspected, and you haven’t tried to get away?”

Erwin rubbed Levi’s knuckles with his thumb. “If they’re going to come and get us, then we need to be ready to stop them instead of letting this person run around and murder innocent people.”

Mikasa frowned and left the room. I watched her go, but I didn’t get up. Eren and I looked at each other, and he went after her. Historia pulled her legs up against her chest and stared at the tabletop.

What they were doing was noble, but I didn’t see how waiting like sitting ducks would help anybody. It certainly wouldn’t help us if our two patriarchs died.

* * *

I knew.

There was a knock on the door, but I kept looking at the TV. It was late in the afternoon, and everybody was off doing their own thing, but there wasn’t anything for me to do, so I sat and watched shows mindlessly and waited. The feeling of anxiety and anticipation started as soon as I left the dining room table. My limbs got stronger physically as the blood started to work its way into my system, but there was a tremble in my arms and legs that prevented me from doing much.

Historia came down the stairs and looked at me funny, but I ignored her.

There was another knock on the door, but I knew.

* * *

_The world was a blur, and it wasn’t just from the rain. I’d lost so much blood that I could hardly think. He was trying to kill me. He said he loved me. I think he lied._

_Bright lights appeared in my vision. Twins. Headlights, my mind registered. Hands were still gripping my shoulders, and I was holding a torso as hard as I could--which wasn’t much if I was being honest with myself. More and more hands were trying to tear us apart. All I could do was cry._

_The weight of another person was finally taken off of me, and there was a thick rim of complete blackness around my vision. Familiar people were shaking me and trying to get me to_ do something--anything!

_My teeth hurt. My neck hurt. My chest and jaw and arms hurt and felt like lead. I was cold and wet and hungry. I couldn’t move._

_* * *_

_I came to who knows how long later, and it was even worse than before. All I could feel was panic and hunger. I was going to_ die. Where was Marco? Where was the rest of his family? Was he okay? Was everybody else okay too? Why was it so bright in here?

_A hand gripped mine. “Jean? Jean, it’s me. It’s Mikasa.”_

_At the sound of her voice. I calmed down considerably. Nothing would happen to me if Mikasa was here. She’d keep me safe._

_I squeezed her fingers weakly, but I still couldn’t open my eyes. They were so heavy, and the room was so bright…_

_The sounds of her crying broke through the air, and I felt myself become grounded again. “M-Mar…”_

_She sniffled and cleared her throat. “Don’t worry about him right now.” Her voice sounded funny. Normally, it was lilting and happy; strange, I know, but I knew her--I_ know Mikasa _\--and she’s very kind and sensitive even though she doesn’t want anybody to know. Sitting at my side and holding my hand, she didn’t sound very kind. Her voice was thick, and I knew she’d been crying, but she also sounded_ mad _. “He’s fine.”_

_I tried to squeeze her hand again--I wanted to comfort her--but it was so, so hard to move. So I didn’t, and everything faded out again._

_* * *_

_The next time I woke up, I was much more coherent. It was still bright on the other side of my closed eyelids, but it didn’t hurt anymore. It simply was._

_My other hand was preoccupied this time, but the hand holding it was much more gentle. When I finally opened my eyes, I saw that it was Armin, and he was asleep with his head by my waist. That couldn’t be comfortable._

_I gently wiggled our joined hands, and he woke up after the third or fourth try. His eyes met mine, and he immediately looked worried and alert. “Are you okay? How do you feel?” he asked as he sat up, trying to hide the wince he gave at his back._

I’m okay, I promise, _I tried to say, but nothing came out when I opened my mouth._

_He let go of my hand and patted the back of it. “I’ll be right back.”_

_When he returned, he had a couple bottles of water that he helped me drink. I finished the first one completely in twenty seconds, and it was like life was being breathed back into me. “Thank you.” My voice sounded all scratchy and growly from disuse._

_“No problem.” He threw the bottle away. “How are you feeling?”_

_“Shitty.”_

_“You must be well enough if you can talk shit.” His smile was rueful. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard him swear._

_“How bad am I for real?”_

_“Well, you lost so much blood that we thought you were going to die for good this time.” He tucked his hair behind his ears. “You had a heart attack while you were out too, but I think you avoided any damage to your heart and other organs because you’re a vampire. We’ll have to see once you’re up and moving around.”_

I’m only eighteen. I’ve had a fucking heart attack before I’m even twenty years old.

_“Oh.” I frowned down at the IV jutting out of the crease in my elbow._

_He noticed and patted my knee reassuringly. “You won’t have to keep that in for much longer.”_

_“How long have I been out?”_

_“This would be the third day.”_

_“And how is everybody else?” Guilt made my chest heavy. All my friends were in danger because I was stupid enough to follow my sworn enemy into a forest in the middle of the night. How dense could I get?_

_“Ymir was the only one that got anything bad. Some of her teeth got chipped, and there’s a hairline fracture in her jaw from getting hit in the face. There was some severe bruising and a broken rib, but there wasn’t any internal bleeding, thank god._

_“Eren got hit in the tail with a bullet that had wolfsbane all over it. I was able to get it out, and he’s gonna be just fine, but there’s going to be some scarring--especially on his chest where he got punched with wolfsbane bullets too._

_“Mikasa had a broken wrist and some messed up fingers, but they’ve been set properly, and she’ll heal just... Jean?”_

_I wiped at my eyes. All this damage was caused because of me._ Me _. All my friends were nearly killed, and a perfectly good night was all fucked up. Why did my life have to be so fucked up and complicated?_

_“I’m fine,” I said gruffly, blaming the crack in my voice on how little I’d talked in the past three days._

_There was a sudden jolt in my chest, and I pressed my hand against the right side of my chest with wide eyes. “Marco,” I whispered. It was like there was another heartbeat in my chest, and it belonged there. I knew without having to even ask that it was_ him. _It was so strange, but I could feel what he felt as if I were feeling it myself except it originated in that spot where his heartbeat pounded in my chest._

_Fear and sorrow and hunger were prevalent. In seconds, the feeling was gone._

_“Armin, where’s Marco?”_

_Armin fidgeted. “He’s downstairs. Since he got shot in the stomach with a wolfsbane bullet, he’s been unstable, and his body demands blood--much more than you could’ve ever provided._

_I reached up and touched my neck where Marco bit me. There was a thick pad of gauze over it. Most of it felt healed already when I moved my head around, but I knew I was going to have a scar there--a bad one. In a weird way, I wanted it there. The animal part of me was secretly thrilled at finally having my mate’s mark on me. The human part of me was still conflicted at how I was supposed to feel about that._

_“I need to see him.”_

_“No, you don’t,” he replied quickly, shaking his head. “He’ll literally eat you.”_

_I guess he had a point. “When can I see him.”_

_“I don’t know.” He tugged on his earlobe, and I knew there was something off. “We’ll have to wait and see when you’re well enough to get up and when he’s stable.”_

_“Okay.”_

_My stomach growled, and he cracked a smile. “I’ll be right back with something for you.”_

_I’d never had a meal taste so good in my entire life._

_* * *_

_Later that night, I was finally alone. Everybody had a chance to talk to me or at least see me since I woke up. I was grateful to see them, but it only made my guilt worse. Every single bruise I saw reminded me of my mistake. They reassured me that they fought willingly, and it was the Bodts’ fault. Still…_

_I sat and stared out the window. Throughout the day, I’d been given plenty of blood, and I felt so much better than before. I wondered how Levi and Erwin managed to get ahold of so much since there were at least three of us that needed it to get better. Did they have to go rob a blood bank? Did they wear their masks or ski masks? The thought of them holding out bags with black ski masks over their faces made me snort._

_Despite how horrible the past several days were, I felt okay emotionally. Sure, I was really anxious and desperate, frankly, to see Marco, but I knew that Levi and Erwin knew best. If they said I had to wait, I had to wait no matter how hard it would be for me._

_My hand wandered to the bandage on my neck. Every time I touched it, I felt a plethora of emotions. I was thrilled. It was like the ultimate hickey even if the circumstances weren’t ideal. I felt a bit insecure too. For the rest of my life, I’d have this thing marring my skin, and I had a feeling it would be ugly. Now that Marco was a vampire too, would he tell me it was okay?_

_I couldn’t remember everything that happened on that night, but I did remember Marco telling me he loved me, and that gave me hope._

_* * *_

_The day finally came when I was able to see Marco. They said he was doing better, and his wounds were healed fully. I could walk around without seeing stars now, and the bandage was off my neck. Yes, there was a scar, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I could hide it with some makeup or t-shirts (as if I didn’t wear enough of those already)._

_Everybody around me was nervous, but they wouldn’t talk about it. I think they thought Marco was going to try and bite me again._

_The basement definitely smelled like blood, and I could smell it even with the door shut, my hand on the handle. Taking a few deep breaths, I composed myself._ I’m fine, _I reminded myself._ I’m don’t need it. I’m not going to die without it.

_Everything that was in the basement was pushed to the side, and a cot was set in the center of the room. Shelves were lined with some novels and puzzles, and I imagined it was to keep him from going crazy with cabin fever. The small mini fridge had a chain around it, and I could guess why._

_At first I didn’t notice Marco down there. To be fair, he was holed up in a corner with a duvet around his shoulders. I couldn’t see anything of him but his hair, but I could feel a slight pull toward him._

_My foot hit the floor. “Marco?” I said quietly._

_No answer. I stepped closer._

_“Marco, it’s me. It’s Jean.”_

_“Stop.”_

_I halted._

_He shifted and let the blanket slide down, exposing his bare shoulder and chest. His eyes were dark, and he looked… livid. “Go away.”_

_I blinked. “Why?”_

_“I don’t want to see you.”_

_My brain seemed to be moving sluggishly. “Why not? What’s wrong?”_

_“What’s_ wrong _?” he hissed, standing up. The blanket fell to the ground, and I could see his scar from the bullet vividly against his much-paler skin. It was red and looked as angry as he did. I knew firsthand how much that must’ve hurt. “_ What’s wrong? _I’m this_ thing _because of_ you _.”_

_I could only blink at him. It was like my brain was willing me not to understand what he was saying in the same way that some people block out memories of traumatic events to keep them sane. Was I going to go insane?_

_“I-I didn’t--”_

_“You didn’t_ what? _” he demanded. His eyes flashed. The amount of blood he’d consumed made his irises a deep, maroon color. If he wasn’t so pissed at me, I’d think it was beautiful. “You know how much I hate these… these_ monsters _, and now I’m doomed to be one forever because of you!”_

_“M-Marco, it isn’t as bad as you think.” Damage control. I had to fix this before it spiraled out of control even more. “I-it changes--”_

_“_ I don’t care!” _His breath heaved in out of his chest, and his nostrils were flared. “I. Don’t. Care.”_

_My stomach--which had been clenched since I saw his bullet wound--slowly started to sink. I was so stupid to think he would forgive me. Being turned changes people--I, of all people, knew that. It didn’t matter if he said he loved me before he died. Marco wasn’t the same person I’d known my whole life. He was different now. He was always going to be different from now on._

_Tears pricked at my eyes, and my throat was tight._ I won’t let him see me cry. I won’t let him see me cry. I won’t let him--

_“I wish you’d died.” Some of the fight went of out him, and he turned his back to me. Still, his voice was so hard and full of malice. “We would all be better off.”_

_And that was the final nail in the coffin. Without a word, I turned around and went up the stairs. Everything was some sort of weird blur. I didn’t notice everybody’s stares as I passed through the living room. I wasn’t stupid--I know they’d heard everything. I couldn’t bring myself to care._

_It was deadly silent as I passed by them and went up the stairs. All I could feel was Marco’s hurt and anger pulsing like a sore thumb--no, like an open, infected wound--through our bond. I was in a trance. Nothing else mattered but making him happy._

_Silently, I shut the door of the bathroom behind me and locked the door. Make everybody happy. Better off. My fault. Makethemhappy. Myfault. Makethemhappymyfault. Myfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfau--_

_In the cabinet was a pill bottle. Don’t ask me why it was there or whose it was. That was all irrelevant. All that mattered was the fact that the damn thing was full._

_* * *_

_One thing they don’t tell you in the informational session in hell about vampires is that we can’t die from an overdose, but it still hurts._

_* * *_

_The next thing I remember after the bathroom door being literally kicked in was waking up in the same bed I’d literally just gotten out of. Something about that thought made something inside me die a little more. Never had I ever pitied myself this much before. From my dry mouth to the numbness radiating through my whole body, I just wanted to sit down and cry and suffocate like that._

_My brain still couldn’t quite comprehend what had transpired before my overdose. Marco_ hated _me? A voice in the back of my mind insisted that that was wrong because he was my mate; he_ couldn’t _hate me. It was like hating your favorite food or the smell of baked goods; like turning the radio off halfway through your absolute favorite song or jumping in an ice-cold pond when the sun is shining just right and the temperature reminds you of better days. It was jarring and uncomfortable._

_Unnatural._

_Leave it to me to be in the most unnatural, unconventional, and unbelievable situation ever. Because_ of course _it would happen to me._

_As I willed myself to drift off again, I couldn’t tell if the pain in my gut was from my body rejecting the medication or from my equally poisonous thoughts._

_* * *_

_Sometimes I could hear Mikasa crying in my dreams, and in my nightmares, I saw Marco smiling and laughing with me like before._

_* * *_

_I finally woke up and stayed awake about 36 hours later. Nobody was there when I woke up, and I was so relieved. I wasn’t sure how long I would’ve lasted if I’d seen anybody trying to take care of me. I went from being self-sufficient for seven months to needing to be waited on hand and foot for who knows how long._

_I hated myself even more._

_* * *_

_Getting out of bed was a nightmare, but I did it because I needed to know I could do something by myself, for myself. I went to the bathroom and took a shower, making sure not to look at my reflection. Halfway through drying myself off, I had to hug the porcelain throne. My stomach got rid of all the pills and blood that was left in my system. I had vague recollections of a tube down my throat as somebody tried to pump my stomach, but I didn’t know if those were dreams of memories._

_When I brushed my teeth, I used a bunch of extra toothpaste. My breath was bound to smell like death--no pun intended._

_The action of putting on clean clothes and washing myself was calming. It was a relief to know that I’d managed to do it all myself even if I felt like I was going to be sick from all the moving around. My mind was quiet for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Even the silence wasn’t deafening._

_I was drying off my hair some more when I left the bathroom, pausing at the top of the stairs. A sudden and violent image of me throwing myself down them came to mind. Shaking my head, I dislodged the thought. The stairs were slightly terrifying to me, but it wasn’t because of the fear of falling down them._

_It was because I had no way of knowing who would be right at the bottom of them._

_My heart rate jolted just thinking about it, and I went back to the spare room, shutting the door behind me. Why was I freaking out so much? I was being unreasonable. Marco could get up here if he really wanted to. The fact that I was upstairs didn’t mean a damn thing._

_Still, I was freaked out by the thought of going to get something to eat and running into him. What would I say? What would_ he _say? This house was like a minefield now._

_* * *_

_A couple hours, there was a tap on the door behind me. I jolted awake and wondered when I’d fallen asleep. “Yeah?” I asked. My neck hurt from being hunched over._

_“Can I come in?”_

_I blinked. “Sasha?”_

_The door cracked open a little. She looked a little pale. “Jean.”_

_We both looked at each other for a moment before she, well, descended on me and gathered me in an iron grip. “_ Jean Michael Kirschtein _if you ever do_ anything _like that again I’m going to skin you alive. Y’hear me?”_

_I squeezed her back. “I-I hear you. I’m s-sorry,” I said, feeling my throat already start to constrict with unshed tears._

_She pulled back and sat back on her knees. “What are you doing on the floor?”_

_“I…” I looked around helplessly. “I didn’t want to go downstairs anymore,” I said in this pathetic little voice._

_She nodded as if this made total sense. “Do you want to go down now?”_

_Biting my lip hard, I shrugged. “I don’t know, Sash. Is… is it, um, safe?”_

_For a moment she looked at me, and I wanted to die all over again. Her voice was as soft as the hands she reached out to push my hair out of my eyes. “Jean, honey. Yes, it’s safe. I won’t let anybody hurt you.”_

_Tears suddenly pricked at my eyes again, and I gave her hand a squeeze._

_She grabbed my other hand and helped me stand up. My back popped a billion times from the poor posture, and we headed down the stairs. It was very uneventful except for the one time my foot slid off the edge of the step, and I almost fell, but as promised, Sasha grabbed my upper arm and kept me from falling._

_When I reached the bottom level, I blinked. Sitting on the couch was none other than Connie Springer. “What are you doing here?”_

_He stood quickly and turned around to face me. There was an expression on his face I’d only seen a handful of times--anger. “What the fuck, Jean?”_

_“Wh-what?”_

_Sasha rested a hand on my lower back. “Connie.”_

_He ignored her. “What. The. Fuck?” he repeated. “I should_ punch _you, fucking jerk. We’ve known each other for how long now, and you never thought to tell me that you’ve been turned into a_ fucking vampire _?”_

_I twisted my fingers together. They were already clammy and uncomfortably warm. “I--”_

_“It would be one thing if I found out because you’d told me when you come back from your trip, but no. All I know is I leave our party and don’t hear from you or basically anybody for a full week, and when I do it’s because I’m getting a phone call from Historia saying that you’ve overdosed, and you might not make it!”_

_He threw his hands out to his sides and rubbed his head with blunt fingernails. “Do you know how fucking_ scared _I was to hear that? My best friend in the whole world tried to kill himself over things I had no idea were happening!”_

_“Connie,” Sasha interrupted sharply. She rubbed small, soothing circles on my lower back. Unconsciously, I’d been backing into her while Connie ranted. His anger reminded me too much of not only Marco but myself, and my heartrate was already picking up. “That’s more than enough.”_

_For a moment he stopped and looked at me with those big hazel eyes of his. All the fight seemed to go out of him once he really looked at me. I felt pathetic, gaze downcast, hunched over, leaning against Sasha for emotional and some physical support, probably looking like I’d been run over by an RV. “You almost died.”_

_I nodded and glanced up at him for a moment. “Yeah.”_

_He sat down on the couch. “What… What happened to you?”_

_I knew he was talking about more than what’d happened a few nights ago. He meant since I’d been home. Since before I’d even left home. What happened to me? What_ happened _to me?_

_Gingerly, I separated myself from Sasha. She looked at me long and hard as if to ask if I was okay. I gave her a little half smile and sat my ass on the coffee table in front of Connie. She moved to sit next to him. Taking a deep breath, I folded my hands in my lap and said, “It all started when Marco told me about this party.”_

_* * *_

_Connie was quiet until I was done. I told him everything I could remember from how I felt when I realized I loved Marco to how it felt being shot and everything in between. He listened attentively and didn’t look at me like I was the world’s biggest basket case._

_I swallowed thickly and rubbed the gunshot scar on the inside of my forearm. “So I’m really sorry I never told you. I just… didn’t want to get you involved.” I looked between both of them. “I never wanted to get_ any _of you involved.”_

_He reached out and slowly took my hands in his. I let him, grateful he hadn’t been his normal self and yanked me toward him. My heart probably wouldn’t have been able to handle that. “I’m… I’m so sorry Jean.”_

_I looked up at him. “What? What for?”_

_“I came in here, and I just… I started yelling at you without knowing everything. I’m sorry.”_

_I squeezed his hands. “It’s okay.”_

_He squeezed them back and let go. “What now?”_

_I looked toward the basement door. “I don’t know, Con. I have no motherfucking clue.”_

_* * *_

_I was dozing on the couch when Mikasa came through the front door. Part of me felt a little calmer, a little safer, when she came in, and I opened my heavy eyes. “Hey.”_

_She gave a little half smile. “Hi.” Then she went into the kitchen._

_“H-how was your day?”_

_She looked up at me from where she was standing at the counter. Her gray eyes were unreadable, and her voice was strangely even when she spoke. “It was fine.”_

_My brows furrowed. “Are you okay?”_

_Her palms splayed out on the counter, and she took a deep breath. “I want to know why you thought it was a good idea.”_

_“Why what was a good idea?” I asked, but I already knew._

_“Taking a bunch of pills. Trying to kill yourself.”_

_There was a pang in my stomach. “I-I-I don’t know.”_

_She looked up at the wall in front of her. “Your mom called us right after it happened. She asked if you were okay--said she had a feeling something was wrong. I had to lie and say you were fine when I could hear my parents trying to pump your stomach in the bathroom.”_

_I bit my lip so hard it bled but didn’t say anything._

_“I can’t say I understood your pain because I don’t have a mate. As much as I wish Armin and Eren were it, they aren’t, and they never will be. No, I can’t understand it, but I felt it. What you were feeling was valid, but I just…” She looked down at her hands. “There’s gotta be some way for you to deal with this. A healthy way. Marco is a vampire now--a pissed one at that--and he’s living in our basement for the time being. He isn’t being held hostage. He doesn’t want to hurt anybody, so he’s willingly staying down there. You two are going to be seeing a lot of each other. You can’t do something stupid every time he says something hurtful. And he’s_ going _to say some shitty stuff.”_

_Tears pricked at my eyes. I knew she was right._

_“We all love you, Jean, and we understand that you’re going through an extremely rough time, but doing something as drastic as overdosing isn’t going to fix anything--trust me._ I know _. It will only make things worse for you and those around you.”_

_She looked up, and I could see even from the couch that her eyes were red and filled with unshed tears. Tears I caused. I remembered the time we were talking about her past. When she was a human still, she’d ODed too. My stomach clenched, and I thought I might be sick at the memory. “Don’t do something like this again. Please.”_

_I brought my knees up to my chest and nodded, tears of my own sliding down my cheeks. How could she even look at me? I was such a disappointment. “Okay,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, Kasa. I’m really sorry.” I rested my forehead on my knees._

_A few moments later, her arms came around me, and we held each other like the world was going to end any moment._

_* * *_

_Marco had spent more days than he could count down in the basement of his French teacher’s weirdly tripped out house. He couldn’t remember much from the moment he’d died until he got in that basement, and he supposed it was for the best. That stupid bullet really did a number on him, and he found himself wishing he’d just died from it for the billionth time._

_There were occasional flashes of a memory--the sound of the gun being fired over and over and his mother’s screams, feeling so cold even though he was burning up inside, a voice telling him he was going to be okay, that very first taste of blood he’d ever had as a vampire. Jean’s blood._

_The past two years had been extremely confusing and stressful as he learned about this other world and how to control it--like the world’s gardeners just trying to pull out all the weeds. If they weren’t taken care of, they’d take over the rest of the garden and destroy it. At least, that’s how Marco’s mom had explained it to him. It made perfect sense._

_But then he had to go and find out his best friend and crush of who-knows-how-many-years was a vampire, and everything got turned upside-down._

_It was like some sort of shitty, low-budget drama on TV. Except, Marco wasn’t going to forget his morals for somebody he liked. There were plenty of fish in the sea--flowers in the garden, actually--and he could take his pick of any of them--no pun intended. All he had to do was destroy this infected flower and call it a day._

_It was much harder than it looked._

_As much as he tried, Marco couldn’t unsee Jean as a flower. He was fiercely protective of his friends and family, he flourished under praise, and even his temper was only a mere thorn against the rose of his beauty._

_Marco knew he was completely and utterly_ fucked _as soon as the dreams started._

 _It was like any of his other dreams that had Jean in them, except this felt so much more_ real. _He could practically feel the weight of Jean’s body pressed against him, hear their ragged breathing as they got lost in one another. Sometimes he would wake up, and there would be the faintest red marks on his body, and he wondered how he managed to scratch himself in his sleep so much._

 _Marco supposed he was lucky that he couldn’t remember dying. He wished he could’ve asked Jean--_ somebody _\--what it was supposed to feel like when you were turned. Was it supposed to hurt? Did it feel like a spring breeze coming through to blow out all the cobwebs death managed to weave in such a short time span?_

_Hell, he didn’t know, and he wished he didn’t care._

_He might not have remembered what it felt like to die, but he certainly could remember how it felt to live again. The floor was cold despite the space heaters placed around the room. At least there was a mattress and plenty of blankets for him, and he used them all the time. His body revolted against him, yo-yoing back and forth between burning up and feeling like ice. Marco had never once thought about how the beings might feel after getting wolfsbane in their system even though he’d used it more times than he could count. Yeah, he thought the world needed to be rid of such evil, but he didn’t believe in torture, and that’s what this was: Torture._

_When Marco’s fever broke, he got up on shaking legs and pounded on the door and walls of the basement, adrenaline surging through his newly started heart. He remembered being afraid and wanting to leave and go back to his family. It wasn’t until he remembered that he couldn’t go back to his family ever again that he sat back down._

_Later that night, a man came down into the basement. Marco had been waiting all day to throw himself out the door and escape, but he found himself cowering beneath the blankets once the door opened. He was aware of how unarmed and weak he was, and he knew he had no chance at a fight._

_“Marco,” the man said, and Marco looked up at him. The man was blond with piercing blue eyes. There was an air about him of things long-forgotten and powerful. He sat down on the floor with his legs under him. “My name is Erwin. How do you feel?”_

_Marco frowned at that. The name sounded very familiar. “How do you think I feel?”_

_The corner of Erwin’s mouth tilted up at Marco’s snark. “Touche. Are you hungry?”_

_Marco wanted to straight-up_ hiss _at that because_ yes _, god dammit, he was hungry, but he was trying so hard not to be. He chose to remain silent._

_Erwin leaned his elbows on his knees. “I know these aren’t the most ideal conditions, but it’s only until you can control yourself enough not to hurt yourself and others.”_

_“I don’t need a babysitter.”_

_He cocked a bushy eyebrow. “Trust me, you do.”_

_Involuntarily, Marco bared his teeth at Erwin. Much to his surprise, Erwin_ laughed.

_“Do you know who I am?” he asked. It wasn’t in a condescending tone, but Marco was irritated all the same._

_“I don’t care.”_

_“I’m Levi Ackerman-Smith’s husband. I’m sure you know who that is?”_

_Something pinged in Marco’s mind. Yes, he knew Erwin even though they’d never met in person. He remembered hearing Jean talking about him with Mikasa and Historia once, and he remembered Levi telling Jean about something when Marco was entering the room for his French class. Erwin. He was the patriarch it seemed. The ringleader. Interesting._

_“I know how painful it is to have to deal with all this poison in your system, and Jean does too.” Marco thought he saw Erwin’s eyes narrow ever so slightly, but it might’ve been his imagination. “Anything we can do to make you more comfortable we will do.”_

_“Let me go then.”_

_“You already know we can’t do that.” He shifted. “A new vampire is unpredictable at best. You were turned with wolfsbane in your body. ‘Unpredictable’ doesn’t come close to covering it. If we let you go now, you’d most likely end up killing the first several people you saw.”_

_Marco clenched his jaw. He resolved to get enough control to leave this place, and then all these bloodsuckers were going to be sorry. He knew he’d be too much of a coward to kill himself, but he did have a mission to carry out--he still was a hunter after all--and he planned on doing what he could before somebody was bound to kill him._

_“Fine.”_

_“Everybody else is safe, in case you wanted to know. Your friends. They’re a little worse for wear, but nothing that won’t be healed with time.”_

_Marco blinked, suddenly guilty. He’d forgotten about them. “You aren’t going to hurt them?”_

_Erwin shook his head. “No, we don’t hurt innocents. We get our blood from companies that are in charge of blood donations. Vampires cannot get sick, so any blood that is bad goes to us, and there is far more blood that is rejected than one would think.”_

_“Oh.” That was a far cry from what his parents told him. Images of throats torn out viciously, blood sold on some sort of black market, and people running in terror flashed through his mind. He had no idea vampires could be so… civilized._

_“I know this must be confusing for you,” Erwin continued. “I hope we can change your opinion of our race. We’ve evolved over the years, no longer ruled by such carnal desires. You can ask us anything you want.”_

_Marco furrowed his brows. He had tons of questions, but he didn’t want Erwin to get any big ideas about him being okay with what he was now. He wasn’t. Not by a long shot._

_As if sensing Marco’s reluctance to be in a room with him any longer, Erwin stood and brushed off his pants. “Levi or I will bring you something to eat in a little bit. If you need anything else, feel free to ask.” He headed towards the stairs. “Oh, and Jean has been asking to see you. Just thought you should have a heads-up before we let him down here.”_

_“Fuck him.”_

_Erwin quirked one of his eyebrows again but didn’t say anything as he went upstairs and quietly closed the door._

_* * *_

_It was about three days later. Three days since he’d seen Jean. Three days since he’d said those damning things. Nobody would tell him anything, but Marco found it easy to just listen. Every once in awhile he could hear people upstairs talking when they passed by the stairs. He was able to piece enough together to figure out that Jean had done something to himself once he left the basement several days ago._

_Marco was extremely confused by the cocktail of emotions swirling around inside him. On one hand, he figured Jean deserved whatever he got. Marco was a monster now, and he was going to think like one, naturally. On the other hand, Jean had been his best friend for years, and the thought of him in pain hurt him too._

_There was also this issue with this other… thing inside him that seemed to be feeding into his emotions as well. Marco knew that this thing was actually him even though it wasn’t. It felt less like a conscious being and more like an entity. A force. And this force absolutely_ despaired _at the idea of Jean doing something to hurt himself. Jean was so young, and he shouldn’t have had to go through all this, shouldn’t have had to be turned in the first place._

_Marco wondered sometimes if Jean wished he’d died instead of living a second life. Did he wish he could tell others what he was? What would Marco’s life be like if Jean had actually died instead of being turned? For starters, Marco wouldn’t be moping in his French teacher’s basement._

Bleak, _that force told him, and Marco reluctantly agreed with it. Yes, his life would’ve been bleak for quite some time. How many years had Marco had a crush on his best friend? Too many. But he knew that if Jean was dead, he would’ve eventually gotten over it and found somebody else that made him that happy. Other flowers and such._

_There were voices in the living room, and Marco crept up to the top of the stairs. Through the door, he could hear… Connie? What was he doing?_

_The longer he listened, the more irate his friend seemed to become. Sasha interjected, and he heard Jean’s voice too. He was stuttering, something he hadn’t done since he was young. It was a nervous tic he’d managed to tamp down. All this trauma seemed to be bringing it back up._

_There was a pause, and Jean started to speak again. Marco heard his name being uttered, and he decided that he would listen since he had nothing else to do with his spare time._

_Jean’s words were quiet, and some words were simply gone due to the door, but Marco just closed his eyes and leaned back against the wood. Something about his voice was like sandpaper and aloe--grating but soothing._

_He listened as Jean told his story. He told Connie about how it felt to die and be reborn, his denial, his growing relationship with Mikasa, Eren’s help and when he was attacked by that werewolf--the one Marco killed right after that--Jean’s developing feelings for Marco, and the moment he realized he was in love. He told Connie and Sasha how he knew he had to keep his family safe, so he decided to leave. He told them about his hesitation to come home, and he even told them about how it felt to almost die a second and third time. Nothing was censored._

_Before Marco knew it, he felt tears on his cheeks. The world was so unfair. Jean should’ve never gotten turned. He hadn’t had a choice either, but he also shouldn’t have turned Marco either. Marco and Jean both had to sacrifice in order to protect the ones they loved, and they shouldn’t’ve had to give up so much, but such is life._

_Standing, Marco went back down the stairs and rested on his matress. He knew that he would still have to keep Jean away. He was still angry, and he had every right to be, but he understood better now. When he had the chance to get out of this hellhole, he was going to, and he was going to go far away. Far away so he could carry out his mission without hurting Jean in the process. Somebody needed to stop others from being turned against their will, and if that somebody had to be Marco then so be it._

_* * *_

_Part of me felt like a major coward for avoiding Marco again, but then I wouldn’t feel so guilty once my palms started sweating and my whole body trembled. Sure, I thought I was pathetic, but it was better than having to face Marco’s rage again._

_Nobody said anything to me about being a better vampire parent, and that was good and bad. Good because I wouldn’t have somebody breathing down my neck 24/7. Bad because I felt incompetent._

_Marco had become--of all people--Levi’s surrogate progeny. Out of everybody in the house, Levi was the only one Marco would actually talk and_ listen _to. Still, I would go and hunt other animals and bring them home for him even if he rejected them sometimes. My instincts told me what I should be doing, and that made things easier at times. Feeding my progeny and making him feel as comfortable as possible were the two main objectives. Hunting was second nature to me, and staying away was easy enough._

_Even though I was, well, terrified of the monster I’d created, I couldn’t bear to go anywhere else for too long. Mikasa told me it was most likely because he was my mate, and I could definitely see how that played a part. It was like I could somehow tell each time he inhaled or whenever his heart rate spiked. Something about being too far away was painful, so arrangements were made, and the spare bedroom became my own for the time being._

_Sometimes, I would wake up in the middle of the night covered in a cold sweat, heart pounding and claustrophobia gripping at my chest. I longed to be on the road. Seven months on my own couldn’t be erased so soon it seemed._

_On really bad days, I considered throwing all my stones away. The metaphysical ones I’d gotten so long ago. But as soon as I tried to get rid of them, something would stop me, and I’d shove them in one of my bags again._

_Connie and Sasha visited more often. I both welcomed and dreaded their visits. Since the incident, talking to people for too long was very draining, but I also loved and missed my friends. They were insatiable--asking anything and everything. They would also pounce on Eren whenever he was over too._

_That was another interesting facet of my life. The first time I saw Eren after my overdose, he slapped me in a fit of rage before pulling me into a bone-crushing hug. My face stung, but I wasn’t sure how to feel. Since then, we’d gotten closer. He would sit with me when I was having troubles catching my breath and talk soothingly to me. I didn’t have the knowledge about werewolves then that I do now, but I had a feeling his instincts and nature were also assisting him._

_On really good days, we’d go hunting together and race each other like old times. It was honestly the most fun I’d had in so long, but it only made it that much harder when reality came crashing down by the end of it._

_Armin was also a huge source of support for me. Everybody knows how I am with feelings, but I felt safe talking to him. He was so nonjudgmental, and his calm demeanor made me feel more relaxed._

_Ymir also started coming around more often. It was a little awkward at first since I still felt super guilty for being the reason why her face got all fucked up, but she assured me she’d taken worse, and Monte hit like a little bitch compared to some others she knew. Honestly, I didn’t want to know what other trouble she’d managed to get herself into._

_Every once in awhile, I’d notice a hickey on her neck, and being the asshole I am, I’d point it out to her. She’d always glare and say it was none of my business despite the blush on her cheeks, but I noticed she always smelled distinctly of Historia after that._

_I hadn’t seen Marco for two weeks, and I was wound up tight. Every moment made me nervous, and I was wondering when the other shoe was going to drop. This peacefulness couldn’t possibly last for much longer. Could it?_

_It was a Tuesday afternoon when I saw him. I came down the stairs, scratching my belly and yawning. Something in me knew that I was going to see him today, but I hadn’t known it would be so soon._

_Levi was making breakfast, and Marco was sitting at the kitchen table with a crossword puzzle. For a moment, all I could do was stare. Even though I was already panicking, my mind registered that he was beautiful. So perfect. He’d been gorgeous before, but the change only amplified that. My inner beast duly noted that I was lucky to have such a beautiful being as my mate._

_The front door opened, startling me and making me jump. Eren stepped over the threshold and paused, eyes darting to all three of us. “Uh…”_

_“How nice of you to knock,” Levi said snarkily. The tension was even thicker now that Marco knew I was standing there. Or maybe he didn’t actually care. It wasn’t like I was looking at him or anything._

_“Sorry.” He toed off his shoes. “Kasa told me I could just come in.”_

_“Well, when she starts paying the bills to the house, she can decide who can come in without being invited first.”_

_Eren grinned sheepishly at him. As he knew by then, Levi was all bark and no bite. Mostly._

_When I looked back at Marco, he was dutifully focused on his crossword puzzle, pointedly paying me no mind. I released a breath I didn’t know I was holding and went into the kitchen the long way around to give him a wide berth._

_Levi looked up at me when I came in before going back to scrambling eggs. Eren joined us a moment later, boosting himself up onto the counter despite Levi’s glare. He then started motioning between me and Marco while looking at Levi who finally sighed at set the spatula down to look at both of us._

_“You two have to learn to get along,” he said quietly enough that Marco wouldn’t be able to hear it. “You’re literally stuck together for eternity. If he dies you die and vice versa. There’s no way around this.” He looked behind himself and waved toward Marco. “He’s not bothering anybody right now, and I’ll knock his teeth out if he does.”_

_I pursed my lips but didn’t say anything. He was right, but that didn’t mean I had to like it._

_Breakfast was tense. I leaned against the counter while Eren sat on top of it next to me. There was no way I could sit across the table from Marco and pretend everything was fine. Eren talked to me--more like at me--and I nodded and made the right noises at the right time without really listening. I_ was _, but, well…_

_My mind felt like some sort of fucked up GPS with a voice in my head telling me to turn left and continue forward until my destination was reached. With some concentration, I managed to tamp it down. It was exhausting, though. I found myself wondering if it was too early in the day to take a nap already._

_Halfway through our meal, Levi abruptly stood up and went to the front door. All three of us watched him curiously before Eren and I heard what he had. Through our bond, I could feel that Marco still didn’t know what Levi was doing._

_After a moment of waiting, Levi threw the door open, and Connie stood there with his fist up about to knock. Ymir was standing right behind him. If I felt more normal, I would’ve laughed at Connie’s shook expression. “Woah.”_

_“I wish you’d stop doing that,” Ymir grumbled as she stepped over the threshold. Despite the heat, she had a leather jacket slung over her shoulders. I peered past the door, and I saw that she was probably wearing it since the sky looked like it was about to open up at any moment. Connie stepped in after, albeit much more carefully when he saw Levi eyeing him._

_Simultaneously, both of them looked right at Marco who’d managed to go even more motionless than a stone. He looked paler than normal too, jaw set and eyes slightly widened._

_“Marco?” Connie said, coming toward him._

_As if Connie’s hands were hot flames, Marco scrambled to his feet and backed up, looking scared. “St-stay away from me.”_

_Connie came to a stop. “Why?” He blinked owlishly, and I was reminded of the kid I met on the playground in kindergarten. “What’s wrong?”_

_“Stay away from me,” Marco repeated, and for a moment, his eyes flicked up to mine. It was very brief, but they weren’t filled with hate; it was desperation. Carefully, I tried to probe at him through our bond. Waves of panic and fear washed over me, and I gasped audibly. “I’m going to hurt you.”_

_For a second, Connie was confused, but he relaxed. “Marco, you aren’t going to hurt me.” He sounded so confident._

_Ymir looked at Connie from where she was standing behind him, and she didn’t look so sure. Not only was she critical of the world, but she also had been around vampires enough by now to know that one’s humanity wasn’t always going to hold out. It wasn’t a foolproof shield. Our lives weren’t_ Twilight _movies._

 _Marco backed up another step as Connie got closer. I could feel his desperation growing, and I could even feel his hunger. He hadn’t eaten yet today--_ real _sustenance, that is. “Connie,” he warned._

_The four of us watched the pair as they moved around the kitchen table. We were all wondering what was going to happen. I hadn’t been around Marco much, and I didn’t know if he could or would actually try to hurt our friend. Eren was extremely still and tense beside me, ready to jump up at any moment. When I looked at Levi, he was watching me pensively, and I felt like I was being tested somehow._

_It was as if somebody else was in my body. I stepped forward and brushed by Marco, electricity dancing between us when our arms touched. Putting myself between them very firmly, I looked at our friend. “Connie, that’s enough.”_

_His brows furrowed, and he looked between all of us. I wondered what it was like to be in his position. He’d just found out fairly recently that all this existed, yet he was still so trusting. Part of it was because that was just his nature, and the other part of it was because he still hadn’t fully grasped the idea that being turned changes you._

_Thankfully, Ymir was there to help a brother out. She stepped forward and pulled Connie into the living room while Eren jumped down off the counter and moved next to me. His personality had always been fairly protective since he was a kid, but it only multiplied several times over once he’d been bitten. As far as he was concerned, I was part of his pack._

_Marco looked at me for a long ass moment. There still wasn’t any hate or anger on his face yet. He just looked lost._

_“Are you okay?” I asked him._

_Pursing his lips, he nodded._

_I held a hand out in a gesture for him to stay put before I went to the fridge and dug out a bag for him. As soon as he realized what I was doing, the spell was broken, and he scowled. The look was so foreign on his face, and I despaired internally. “I don’t want that,” he snapped._

_“You have to or else the Con Man in there is gonna end up being your next snack.” I had to dig my fingernails into my palm as I said it and will myself not to cry. “So I suggest you put your big girl panties on and go somewhere else to drink this before you do something you regret.”_

_His eyes flashed. In the sunlight streaming through the windows, they were still a beautiful, rich brown and maroon color. I had no idea how much longer they would stay like that, but I kind of liked it. Then again, I liked everything about him._

_He stomped forward angrily and snatched the bag out of my hand, baring his teeth. “If you follow me, I’ll kill you,” he hissed, and then the basement door was slamming shut._

_As soon as he was gone, I slumped back against the counter. Okay, so that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I still wanted to die, and I was sure I nearly fainted, but at least he didn’t try to get physical. I had no doubts his bite was as bad as his bark, though, and I wasn’t crazy._

_Eren dropped his hand heavily onto my shoulder. “‘S okay, Jean,” he mumbled, rubbing a spot on my shoulder blade. “Shit happens.”_

_I shot him a feeble but grateful smile. He squeezed my shoulder and steered me toward the living room where Levi and Ymir were explaining some things to Connie about Marco._

_“Wait, so you’re saying he seriously would’ve killed me?”_

_Ymir nudged his foot with her own. “Probably not, but it still would’ve gotten ugly.”_

_“Oh.”_

_“Yeah. So just cool it next time, okay?”_

_He nodded glumly. “‘M sorry.”_

_Dropping like a stone beside him on the couch, I leaned back and shut my eyes. “It’s cool. You can live without a few pints of blood. It’ll just be a real pain in the neck.”_

_I could practically feel Levi’s eye roll from five feet away. Eren snorted and sat down next to me. We weren’t touching, but I could feel the heat from his body. Shortly after, Ymir sat down on the other side of Connie._

_The four of us being squished onto one couch made me smile a little to myself. I couldn’t even count how many times we’d been in a similar situation but because we were in trouble for some reason or another. The last time I could remember, though, was that night so long ago at Armin’s house when we were all together, and I drew on Eren’s face as he slept. It was the same night Marco came out to me, and it was also the same night Eren and I figured out there was_ something _wrong with me. Thinking about how much things had changed in such a short time almost gave me whiplash._

_“So… Marco,” Connie said._

_I sighed. “Yeah. Marco.”_

_“He’s not doing too hot, is he?”_

_“Nope.” I dragged my hands over my face and rubbed my eyes so much that it became like some sort of weird eye-masturbation thing. “He fucking hates me for turning him. I mean, I don’t blame him. It was against his will. He’s been taught to hate people like us for years.”_

_Uncharacteristically, Connie was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, I can see why he’s pissed, but that doesn’t mean he has to hold a grudge on you forever. It’s been, like, two months already.”_

_I laughed harshly, coldly. “Con, he can be pissed at me for as long as he wants. He has an eternity to hold a grudge.” The sudden weight of this statement pressed down on my shoulders, and I sighed._

_“He’ll come around.” He didn’t sound so sure._

_“Yeah, okay.”_

_“Jean!” Connie sat up and turned to me quite suddenly, back to his normal self. His eyes were excited, and I knew he was up to something. “Are you okay at controlling yourself? Can I see your fangs? Can I see you eat?”_

_I quirked an eyebrow and pursed my lips, debating whether or not it would be a good idea. I felt Eren tense beside me, and I rested a hand on his knee to let him know not to freak out or anything. Finally, I shrugged and bared my fangs at him in the most non-threatening way possible._

_If it was possible, his eyes got even bigger. “Woah! Can I touch them?”_

_“Yeah, just be careful not to cut yourself.”_

_Very slowly, he reached forward and skimmed the pad of his index finger along the edge. I knew from experience that if he’d pressed any harder, his skin would’ve broken open. “That’s so cool,” he breathed. Ymir snorted behind him._

_Pulling back, I let my fangs shorten again. “I guess they’re cool if you like biting your lips open all the time.”_

_He shrugged mildly. “Hazard of the trade, I guess. Are there holes in them so you can suck the blood out of people, or is it just to make a hole for you to drink out of?”_

_Something about the question made me splutter and start laughing harder than I had in a long time. Leave it to Connie to ask such a weird question. I was about to answer when I remembered how I’d asked the exact same thing when I’d been turned too, and I laughed even harder while the other three looked on with concern._

_* * *_

 

_We continued in this sort of limbo, Marco and I, until it was almost the middle of August. Whenever we crossed paths, we’d pretend the other didn’t exist--or, well, he pretended I didn’t exist while I stared longingly after him as soon as I was sure he couldn’t see me--and went about our day._

_With college approaching, I’d decided to put it off for another year. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do it, but I knew that it was selfish of me to leave when Marco was so young. I didn’t want to say that Marco was my responsibility, per se, since it implied some pretty negative things, but…_

_With that, Marco decided to take online courses from a community college. Some nights, I’d get up and find him still awake working on assignments. The kid was determined to get a degree of sorts, that was for sure._

_As the days became shorter and shorter, we tried to convince Marco to go outside more, but it was to no avail. He would never admit it, but he was terrified of the idea that he could hurt somebody. We all knew he was fully capable of controlling himself at this point--especially since we made sure he ate regularly--but he had this idea in his head that he was some sort of uncontrollable monster._

_Finally, he went out for a run in the middle of the night at the very end of July. It was a breath of relief for all of us. After that first time out, he began to venture more and more. Sometimes, Levi would go with him or at least follow to make sure nothing happened. These trips were always uneventful, though, so Levi eventually stopped stalking him._

_Going out seemed to do wonders for Marco’s mood. He wasn’t quite as quiet and broody anymore. When our friends came over to say hi, he didn’t back up in fear and hole himself up in the basement anymore. Sure, he kept his distance, but he seemed to be loosening up. I may not have been the reason for his smiles anymore, but it made me happy to see them all the same._

_It was about a week before school was supposed to start at the high school, and Levi had to go back to work. Because of this, Marco and I were often left alone together. The good news? He didn’t scream at me whenever he saw me around or anything. The bad news? He did glare sometimes, but he was mostly just really pensive and quiet. I would try to tap into the bond to see how he was feeling, but it would feel like somebody was pushing me out._

_After the third day of doing this, I finally stopped right in front of him in the hallway and planted my hands on my hips. He looked at me with raised, expectant eyebrows and an expression of mock boredom. “Yes, Jean?”_

_His lips around my name made my heart jolt in my chest. “We’re going hunting tonight,” I told him as firmly as I could._

_His brows dropped until they furrowed. “Hunting?”_

_“Yeah. Like where you hunt animals and stuff. You’ve been feeling restless for awhile, right?”_

_He pursed his lips a little but didn’t say anything. I took that as my answer._

_“I was taken hunting within my first two months,” I explained, feeling my palms start to become slick with nervous sweat. “It helps control and harness all your instincts, so you don’t hurt somebody you care about.”_

_He looked on the verge of arguing with me, but it seemed as if my words held some weight. “Fine. When?”_

_“Tonight.”_

_He nodded, and we went our separate ways. My heart was beating rapidly in my chest, and I could feel from our connection that his was too._

_* * *_

_Later that night, I dug my mask out of my bag. Even after all this time, it was still blank. I doubted I would need it now, but it was always better safe than sorry. After all, almost all vampires used their masks when they went hunting. It was just easier that way._

_Today, though, I was going to let Marco have my mask. Yeah, it was really stupid of me, but I was one of those idiots that would regularly go out and hunt without one. Sue me._

_Besides, Marco's whole family knew what I was. A mask wasn't about to stop a bullet if they saw me._

_When I got downstairs, Marco was waiting in the living room with his hands shoved in the pockets of his joggers. Levi and Erwin were sitting on the couch and holding hands. They all looked up when I came out. Wordlessly, I held the mask out to him._

_He took it. “What’s this for?”_

_“So nobody can track you down if they see you while you’re hunting.”_

_For a moment, he looked like he wanted to say something, but the moment passed quickly._

_I cleared my throat. “Anyway, are you ready to go?”_

_He shrugged. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”_

_“Cool.” I shoved my own hands in my pockets. The Dynamic Duo was watching us like hawks. “Let’s go.”_

_On the way out the door, Erwin called my name and stopped me. “No more than two hours, please. We’ll be up if you need anything.”_

_I knew we were both thinking about the last time I’d gone hunting in town, and I’d nearly died on their doorstep. Thankfully, he didn’t say anything else._

_The air was thick with tension as he followed me to the outskirts of town. “You aren’t gonna, like, tell anybody where we hunt, are you?” I asked._

_“Who would I tell?”_

_Okay, he had a point._

_“Besides, if I tried to tell anybody, they’d shoot me on the spot.”_ Because I’m a vampire now, and my family hates me, _he didn’t say._

_I sighed through my nose. This was going to be a long night._

_“Where’s your mask?”_

_“You’re holding it.”_

_“Why is it white? Aren’t they supposed to be all fancy?”_

_I was surprised that he was actually talking to me and asking me questions. Honestly, I thought he was going to brood all night. Maybe he’d been feeling more restless than I thought. “Usually, yeah. I haven’t thought of anything good to put on it.” I cleared my throat. “Nothing profound enough, I guess.”_

_Another few long moments passed before he said, “What about Lake Itasca?”_

_“What about Lake Itasca?” I echoed._

_“Didn’t you say you really liked it up there?”_

_Part of me was surprised he remembered. “Yeah, I did. I dunno. It seems like it wouldn’t be as special if I could look at it all the time. Plus, I haven’t had access to any art supplies since I left.”_

_“Why?” We both knew I liked to draw and sketch sometimes._

_“No time. No inspiration. No sharp things like pencils or scissors,” I said, trying to lighten the mood, but it came across as ironically depressing._

_If he noticed my tone, he didn’t comment on it. “How much farther away is it?”_

_“Not very. It’s just up the hill.”_

_“Oh.”_

_Both of us were silent until we got to the top of said hill and stood on the edge of the trees. Before we entered, I stopped and turned to look at him. “There isn’t any right way to hunt, per se, but you should be able to hear or see animals moving around. When you catch them, kill them quickly--don’t draw it out. It’s safe to drink from them. Actually, most people drink animal blood between meals as a light snack. Just know you can’t sustain yourself off them, so don’t even think about it. If you need anything, just call for me, and I’ll be there.”_

_He crossed his arms and looked at the trees. “I’m not an idiot. I’m a trained hunter, remember?”_

_“Yeah, with_ weapons. _You are your weapon now.”_

 _“Okay, okay. God, can I go now,_ Mom _?”_

_With a sigh, I stepped into the trees, feeling a pang in my chest. If he was going to be a little bitch about it, I could too. Moments after crossing into the timber, I was far enough away that he couldn’t hear or see me, but I could still tell where he was through my senses and the bond._

_It must’ve been half an hour into our hunting--Marco didn’t seem like he was having much success, but he said he didn’t need me, so he could suffer through it--when a large buck approached me. I didn’t kill deer very often since they were so big, and I usually didn’t need everything they had to offer. However, I knew I’d probably be sharing with Marco tonight._

_Silently, I stood up from where I was sitting and leaning against a huge oak. My best bet would be to surprise it and break its neck before it had a chance to run._

_I slowly started to take a few hesitant steps toward it when a strong breeze blew behind me. It lifted its head, and we made eye contact for several treacherously long moments before it tensed and bolted away from me._

_“Shit!” I hissed, chasing after it. There was no way I’d be able to just break its neck now. And to think I thought I’d have an easy night._

_Both of us dodged trees while I struggled to stay on his tail--no pun intended. It wasn’t that I couldn’t keep up or anything. His movements were so erratic that it was difficult to tell where I should be going._

_Finally, we broke out into a small clearing, and I took my chance. I got right beside the buck and shoved my shoulder against his side, effectively knocking him over and dazing him for a brief moment. Before I could think about it, I grasped his foreleg and broke it up by the shoulder. The horrifying snapping,_ crunching _sound it made echoed in my ears. I did the same to the other foreleg._

 _The deer keened and cried out, his voice a desperate scream. He struggled to stand up, but we both knew he wasn’t going anywhere. I dodged his back legs and horns as I grasped his head in my hands. “I’m so_ sorry, _” I sobbed. The sound of his neck breaking was equivalent to his legs. Instantly, he stilled._

_My hands stayed grasped in his pelt for a few moments. My heavy breathing was subsiding, but my hands weren’t shaking any less. Tears slid down my cheeks, and I let them._

_Small animals were easy to pounce on and kill, and they left less of an emotional impact. Big animals were, obviously, much more difficult to take down, and I hated it. I hated how creatures such as these were merely prey for us. They were graceful and magnificent, and they were dead in an instant by my hands._

_“I’m sorry,” I whispered again. “I’m so sorry. Th-thank you.” Gently, I set his big head down and rubbed his side. He was still so warm. “I won’t waste your sacrifice. Thank you.”_

_I stayed like that, talking quietly to the slowly-cooling buck before a sound behind me startled me. Turning around, I saw that none other than Marco was behind me. I hastily wiped my eyes and stood up, avoiding looking at him._

_He stepped closer as if I were the wild animal in this situation. Maybe I was. I_ had _just killed something, after all. “Do you, uh.” He cleared his throat. “Need help carrying that?”_

_I shook my head. “‘M fine.” We both knew I was lying. Once I got my arms underneath the buck, I pushed into the ground with my legs and grunted with the amount of force it took to pick him up. He wasn’t too terribly heavy, but I hadn’t had to carry something so big in a long time._

_Silently, we made our way to the edge of the trees. By the time we got there, I was shaking from the effort it took to carry the deer, but I still didn’t complain. The both of us sat down--or rather, I collapsed--next to the buck once I set it down._

_“Do you want to drink first?” I asked._

_He looked at me with astonishment and some fear. “Um. I uh…”_

_“It’s fine if you want me to go first. I don’t care.”_

_After another moment, he said, “Yeah, you go first.”_

_With a shrug, I knelt by the buck’s head and found a good vein to drink from on the first try._

_The difference between animal blood and human blood was that human blood tasted like a four course meal topped off with chocolate mousse and fine wine. Animal blood was more like McDonald’s and tap water. Sure, McDonald’s tasted good, but it was nothing compared to the rich tastes, textures, and appearance of a fancy meal._

_I didn’t take much since I wasn’t very hungry at the moment. When I drew back, I wiped the remaining blood off my lips with the back of my hand and sat down without looking at my companion. “Go ahead. He won’t bite,” I said ironically._

_Marco had an extremely skeptical look on his face, but I didn’t rush him. I knew how… strange it was to drink from something so furry for the first time._

_Finally, he bit where I did and drank. He drank for a long time, and I couldn’t tell if it was because he was consuming a lot or if he was just taking his time._

_I was looking up at the canopy of leaves and trying to see the stars behind them when Marco pulled away. His pupils were dilated, face flushed, and lips parted enough that I could see a little bit of blood still lining his lower lip. Something about that look made me want to reach out to him and lick it off him. I didn’t._

_“You okay?” I asked after a moment._

_He closed his eyes and nodded while rubbing his face. “Yeah, I’m fine. I-I’m just…”_

_“I get it. Take your time. We’ve got plenty of it.”_

_Something about what I said made him look up sharply at me with a frown. Dully, I realized that that was probably not the right thing to say to him, yet I couldn’t bring myself to care._

_We both stood and walked home in stony silence. Anytime I tried to say anything to him, he would either walk faster or glare at me until I shut up. For some reason, I found that it didn’t bother me as much. Nothing really did--not after my kill for the night. My head felt like it was full of cotton, and I wanted nothing more than to get in my bed and never leave it._

_The moment we got back home, he stormed off to the basement. Sighing, I climbed the stairs to my room and got ready for bed. It wasn’t until I was half asleep that I realized I’d started depersonalizing again. Except this time, I welcomed it._

_* * *_

_That night was the first time we’d gone out, but it definitely wasn’t the last. Marco wouldn’t admit it to my face, but I could feel through our bond how he felt less restless after letting go for even a little while. I made a point to take him once a week for the first three months or so after that._

_Our relationship hadn’t improved much despite these escapades--if anything, he grew slightly more hostile and avoided me more--but he was definitely nicer to everybody else. His relationships with Connie, Ymir, Eren, Armin, and Sasha grew stronger as he grew more confident in his self-control. He became tentative friends with Historia, and he even seemed to have some sort of truce with Mikasa. It was obvious to all of us that Mikasa didn’t like him, and I could understand why, but there was a part of me that still wanted them to get along and be friends._

_It was hard when my family called me because as far as I was concerned, I wasn’t even in town. Yep, that’s right. We were lying to my family and telling them I was travelling still while my truck was collecting dust in the garage at the Ackerman-Smith house. We’d decided that it was best for everybody to tell them I was gone since I was going through such a tough time, and I also had to focus on helping Marco out even if he didn’t want it._

_Even harder? My parents treated me like glass whenever they did call because they thought I was still grieving over Marco’s death; his_ permanent _one. Marco’s family put an obituary in the paper, held a funeral and visitation, and even held some sort candlelight vigil at the high school. They told everybody he wrote a suicide note, took some pills, and drowned himself. It was pathetic. Marco cried for days after he found out. His sobs could be heard through the walls. I fucking hated his family._

_Time heals all wounds, they say. He doesn’t cry about it much anymore, and as we all know he started to heal. They don’t tell you about all the nasty fucking scars that are left behind, though._

_* * *_

_It’d been one helluva day when I snapped._

_When you’ve got clinical depression, they don’t always talk about the fluidity of your emotions from week to week, day to day, hour to hour, and even minute to minute. It’s a literal rollercoaster without the adrenaline rush to make it worth it. Some days are exponentially worse than others, but you might have an hour, say, in the morning where you feel fucking amazing again, and you wonder why you ever felt sad in the first place._

_This had been one of those days. I felt actually_ good _for once when I woke up, and it was such a breath of fresh air. I think it was because it was snowing when I looked outside. And it wasn’t the shitty kind either. They were the big, fat, fluffy clumps that lovingly smacked you in the face. Winter and fall were never contributors to my depressive episodes, so that was a relief._

_It was the first day of December, and we’d been taking bets on when it was going to snow first. The weather channel predicted that it would start mid-November, but it never came. Pregnant clouds hung in the sky for almost two weeks. Half the house thought it was going to start mid-December while the other half betted on Thanksgiving. I was the only one that said the week where November turned to December. If my calculations were correct, I’d just won at least a hundred bucks._

_“I win, fuckers!” I yelled as I jumped down the stairs. Historia, Marco, and Levi were in the kitchen when I entered with a grin on my face. “I’ll be expecting my payment by the end of the day.”_

_“Yeah, you’ll get it in pennies,” Historia muttered as she leaned back in her chair and sipped her creamer with a splash of coffee. She wasn’t really mad though, and she winked at me when I stuck my tongue out at her._

_Levi merely grunted at went back to flipping his pancakes._

_I went to grab a mug when the metaphorical rug was pulled from beneath my feet. I must not have grabbed it completely because it slid off the shelf, cracked off the counter, and shattered on the floor._

_The kitchen was dead silent for a moment besides Historia’s surprised squeak. Dread filled my gut, and the good mood I was in had suddenly vanished. Levi quirked an eyebrow at me but didn’t say anything else. It was just a dumb mug after all. What was one cup to a millionaire like him?_

_Still, I felt bad about it, and I felt even worse when I heard a quiet scoff-slash-snicker from the dining room table at my reaction: the pheromones of fear that I was emitting, my surprised and embarrassed look, and the way I’d already begun wringing my hands as I got a broom. A sharp glare from Levi made Marco promptly shut up, but the damage was already done._

_Keeping my head down, I swept it up and made sure there was absolutely no glass left on the ground. Erwin assured me it was no big deal when he came downstairs, but I still stayed quiet. As I picked at my breakfast, I realized I hadn’t had anything but animal blood for almost five days, and that must’ve been why it slipped out of my grasp. But there was something about the depression that made me feel sick when I thought about eating no matter how hungry I was. There was no way I’d be able to choke something down that day._

_In order to make myself feel useful, I went outside and started shoveling the walk. Theoretically, it was a good idea, but it took forever since I wasn’t exactly in prime condition, and it gave me plenty of time to wallow in my misery. Not to mention the fact that I’d slipped and fallen several times, bruises already appearing on my forearms._

_I’d just gotten out of the shower when I got a call from Mom. We chatted for a while, and it felt nice to talk to her, but it also made me feel homesick for her hugs and warm meals. I missed my siblings and their dumb bantering, and I missed my dad’s stupid knitting. He always made the best hot chocolate._

_With a heavy heart, I promised her I’d be home between Christmas and New Year’s, and I headed downstairs to find something else to occupy my time._

_Really, it was no surprise when something in me snapped when my shoulder hit Marco’s as we walked past each other in the hallway on the bottom floor. It was obvious he was doing it to make himself seem bigger and take up more room, and I couldn’t handle it anymore._

_Halting right where we’d touched, I stated to the wall in front of me, “I don’t have to take this.” My skin still tingled pleasantly where it had met his, and it pissed me off._

_“What?” he asked from behind me._

_I turned around and slowly straightened up. There was a fire in my chest. My frustration at allowing my mood to drop, the embarrassment of dropping some stupid mug and slipping outside, my aching sadness to have what I couldn’t--all of it was gasoline in my body, and his touch was a Bic lighter. “I said I don’t have to take this.”_

_He furrowed his brows as if to ask what a meant._

_“I don’t have to take this,” I repeated. “None of it. I don’t need your glares, I don’t need your little power-play shoulder-shoves, and I don’t need your ungrateful ass to give me a cold shoulder every single time I try to help you out.”_

_“I’m not doing something anybody else wouldn’t do.”_

_“Oh, really?” I clenched my fists on either side of me. I couldn’t say in that moment if I really would hit him or not. “‘Cause I beg to differ. Six fucking months of you being shitty and petty to me. I’ve told you I don’t know how many times that I’m sorry for turning you without your consent, but you can’t seem to get over it. I know I made a mistake, and I’m telling you_ yet again _that I’m sorry, but I can’t take it back, and you being a fucking prick isn’t making it easier on either of us!”_

_I knew I should shut my mouth, but once I’d started talking it was like I couldn’t stop._

_“I’ve done nothing but try to make sure you were safe and relatively comfortable, and I’m not asking for some sort of award here, but it’d be nice if you didn’t treat me like some dog shit on the bottom of your shoes for once. I’ve done everything I can to make you happy. Fuck, I even tried to kill myself because you said you wished I was dead._ What more do you want from me _?”_

 _I gestured angrily at the mark that was still on my neck. The scarring wasn’t so bad anymore, but it was definitely still noticeable. “You see this? This was me letting you suck me dry so you could live. You wanna know why I did it?” Sweat pricked at my palms, and I clenched my fists again. “I did it because_ I’m in love with you _, Marco. I’ve loved you since the fourth fucking grade, and I’ve been_ in love _with you since the night I died. And the worst part is I’m_ still _in love with you even though you’ve been so shitty for the past half a year.”_

_His lips were parted, and he looked lost. “Jean--”_

_“Shut up!” I barked. “Just… just shut the fuck up because I don’t want to hear it anymore. What the fuck is your_ problem _? Why do you act that way? I can feel your emotions, idiot; you’re not fooling me by pretending to hate me. I know that you do hate me, but I also know you wish you had me pressed up against this wall right now.”_

_He paled._

_“That’s right,” I sneered, feeling my temper rise up even more. It felt so strange to feel this after feeling nothing for so long, but it was so liberating to speak my mind. “I know you want fuck me, but you also wanna hold my hand afterward. Have you ever wondered why? It’s cause we’re mates, you fucking dolt. You were destined to become a vampire from the moment you were born, and I was too because we’re mates, and we have been since we met.” There was no way for me to know if what I’d said was true, but I_ felt _it. I felt the truth in my words, and I know he could too._

_The fight left me as suddenly as it’d come. “What’s you fucking problem?” I whispered, pain lacing my voice. Tears wet my cheeks, but I didn’t have the energy to wipe them away. “Why can’t you love me?”_

_We both stared at each other for what felt like centuries, and then he was gone in the blink of an eye while I was left to drown in my sorrows on the hardwood floor in the hallway of my French teacher’s house._

_Pathetic._

_* * *_

_I knew._

_Somehow I was in my bed when I woke up in a cold sweat. My body was telling me something was wrong._ Urgent! _it shouted, but my head already knew._

_The door burst open, and Mikasa stood on the other side with wild eyes. “Jean, he’s gone.”_

_I wasn’t surprised._

_I knew._

_* * *_

I knew.

The moment I heard the door open, I knew my past had come back to haunt me. Just when I thought I was free, the Devil himself seemed to pull me back. I didn’t want to remember everything that’d happened, but it seemed I had no choice as Historia rounded the corner and looked at me with an astonished and panicked expression.

She didn’t have to say anything. I wasn’t surprised.

I knew.

Marco rounded the corner behind her, looking at beautiful and terrible as he had the day he left. “We should talk,” he said solemnly.

Choking on my tears, I closed my eyes and nodded.

I knew, but I wish I hadn’t. 


	4. Reunion: An instance of two or more people coming together again after a period of separation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! It really has been a hot minute since I've posted anything for this. Honestly, I've been extremely busy with my first semester in college. Being a music major is extremely time-consuming, especially when you're in marching band for a Big Ten University. We're also headed to Tampa for the Outback Bowl this year, and I wanted to get this posted before then in case I didn't have time to do so after that before the Spring semester began.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> (P.S. There is no actual song list for this chapter, but Troye Sivan's album Bloom has been a huge inspiration. God fucking bless. We stan a king.)

There was still some neon paint under his fingernails. 

Marco picked at it with disinterest. The thing about going undercover is you have to fit the part you’re playing. He was indifferent to the colors, but goddammit, this shit was like glitter--it wouldn’t fucking come off. With an irritated sigh, he looked up at the building he was parked in front of. 

It had been years since Marco last contacted his other family--family being an  _ extremely _ loose term--yet here he was, sitting in a car just outside their house. Nearing half a decade, and they still had the same one. How somebody hadn’t found out by then, Marco hadn’t the slightest clue. 

Vaguely, he wondered how he himself hadn’t figured it out when he was still living with his family. All the signs were there, Marco had just been too dumb to connect the dots at the time.

Sighing, he looked up at the house. There was a pull in his gut, a longing call that started as soon as he brushed up against Jean in that club. It was his break, and he’d gone to the bar to get something to drink. He wasn’t surprised to see Reiner hitting some poor guy up--it wasn’t like they were exclusive or anything--so he rolled his eyes and tried to skirt around them, but the crush of bodies had been too thick. 

To say Jean looked astonished would’ve been the understatement of the century. In fact, he looked like he’d seen a ghost. In a way, Marco guessed Jean  _ had _ . Marco had also been shocked out of his wits, snapping at Reiner the moment he realized who it was. Seeing Reiner’s hands on Jean’s waist and chest and arms made him feel extremely possessive of what was his. That was stupid, though, because Jean  _ wasn’t his. _ He never was, and he never would be. Period. 

Thank god he’d convinced Reiner to stay at the hotel. If he’d come, Marco didn’t think they’d make it past the front walk. Actually, scratch that. He didn’t know if he was going to get by on his own. Maybe he should’ve brought Reiner to look intimidating. Then again, nothing probably intimidated these guys. Marco had a vague recollection of Levi telling him he was approaching 200 in the next couple of years. He’d have to rely on his boyish charms.

He snorted derisively to himself and got out of the car. Right. They trusted Marco and his personality about as far as they could throw him. Or as far as, like, Armin could throw him. Or something. 

With a final sigh, he looked down at the stupid, neon pink and orange paint jammed under his fingers. He wasn’t getting any younger, and this conversation wasn’t going to get any easier, that was for damn sure. 

* * * 

Even to this day, I had no idea how I’d managed to stay calm. Historia told me later how she thought I was either going to implode, have a seizure, or actually kill him. They weren’t unreasonable options. 

“What are you doing here?” I asked, and my voice was a knife in the tense, dense silence. 

“You won’t answer your texts.” He shrugged a little, and if I hadn’t known him for years and years, I would’ve thought he was completely unbothered. He couldn’t completely meet my eyes. 

“Like you didn’t for four years?” My tone was biting--no pun intended. There was a burning in my throat from the tears of anger and frustration I was trying to hold back. 

Historia stood behind him, eyes darting from me to him, obviously at a loss. If I was her, I wouldn’t know what to do either.

He gave no other reaction other than a twitch of his lips as they pressed together.  “I had my reasons.”

Standing up, I fussed with putting the throw pillows back in place. It was more to have something to do with my hands and so I wouldn’t have to look at his stupid face and the uncomfortable look in his eyes he was trying desperately to hide. “I don’t want to have this discussion with you now or ever, and frankly, I don’t give two shits if you’re here about the murders.” 

I straightened up and gestured around me widely with my arms. “Take that shit up with the big guys, a’right? I’m not in charge.”

As I tried to make my escape to the front door--past him, unfortunately--a hand on my arm stopped me. The effect was almost instantaneous. My whole existence narrowed down to the single point of contact, and I could feel the jagged edges of my soul reach out to him desperately. It was only because of the years of self-control I’d managed to build up that made me freeze up and not do something stupid. His palm was warm for a vampire, I dully noted. Then again, he'd always been warm. “Jean--”

“ _ Marco. _ ” I turned around and looked him dead in the eyes. Wrenching my arm out of his grasp, I held his stare and refused to back down. “Stop trying to talk to me like we’re friends or something. We’re not. We’re nothing. I don’t even know you.”

For a moment I thought I saw hurt flash in his eyes, and that pissed me off even more. It didn’t seem fair for him to be hurt about this. All I did was point out what he did to hurt  _ me _ . Nothing I said was untrue, and the last thing I wanted to do was talk to him. I wasn’t ready. Not yet. 

With a small, almost involuntary shake of my head, I curled my upper lip and left. 

Since I’d gotten my truck at the end of my sophomore year of high school, I’d had a habit of keeping my keys on me at all times. Even when I was at home, I had them on me. Something about always having a way to leave kept me calm. Years later, I still hadn’t broken myself of this habit, but it turned out to be a good thing. 

The late November air stung my cheeks as I made my way to the car. I didn’t know where I was going to go, but I knew it had to be somewhere that wasn’t here. Marco knew all our old haunts, though, so I couldn’t just go home or to my favorite diner downtown. 

(Shut up. I’m still sentimental sometimes.)

I can’t remember starting the car or putting it in Drive. I can’t remember the actual drive itself. And I can’t remember stopping and getting out of the car. One minute I was getting in my car and the next I was pulling off the gravel road to park close to where I was turned five years ago.

You’d think after all these years I’d stop coming back here, but something kept drawing me back every single time. For some reason, time always seemed slower here. By the time my first summer as a vampire was over, this had become some sort of safe haven for me. Vampire me, that is. This is where Vampire Jean was born and where Human Jean died. I guess it was only natural that my instincts felt this place was special, if not sacred. 

As I made my way to the exact spot my skull tried to fight a boulder, I wondered if Marco felt anything toward this place. Was he drawn here, or did he hate it? Did he even think about it at all?  

The sun was beginning to set when I sat down in my usual spot and leaned back until I was completely laying down with my legs dangling into the ravine. There were only a few clouds in the sky above me, and they were stained vivid reds and oranges from the last of the sun’s rays.

For a moment, it felt like I could fall asleep. Everything was so still and quiet. It was nice being able to sit and do nothing. Just for a second, all my responsibilities seemed to disappear.

My fingers brushed over the edge of the rock. The blood from my death was long gone now, and the stone was a bit smoother, even. I also knew for a fact that all the blood from Marco--from  _ all _ my friends--was gone; the earth took it and put it to good use.

I sighed aloud and watched as my breath turned into a cloud and floated away. I knew I was going to have to go back and face Marco again--very soon; probably before evening came around--but I needed a moment to compose myself.

I’ve only been a vampire for five years, and I’ll be the first to admit that there is a lot that I don’t know yet, and there is a lot I probably will never know. Many of the concrete, factual parts of being a vampire were familiar to me, such as our biology and habits. Hell, I even knew some of the more abstract concepts such as our instincts and the part of us that we all got as soon as we were changed--the actual vampire part, if you will.

The one thing about vampires that confused and scared me was the idea of mates.

Mikasa probably knew because of the bond--another topic that could give you a migraine if you tried to make sense of it literally--but Marco had done more than hurt my feelings--if it can even be put into such simple terms--when I turned him all those years ago.

Many people have wondered if we still have souls even after we turn into vicious bloodsuckers. The vampires that ponder this fact will continue to agonize over it until they find their mate. The existence of our souls is the most well-guarded secret between mated pairs; so well-kept that often mates themselves have no idea they know, but they do. 

I know. 

How do I know? Because Marco didn’t just leave me with a broken heart when he left. 

He took a piece of my soul with him.

* * *

It wasn’t until a month after Marco left that I realized there was something actually wrong with me. 

At first, I thought I was grieving again. Of course, I had mixed feelings. I was stuck between being upset that I managed to lose my mate and progeny and strangely relieved at not having to deal with the bullshit that came with him. But once I realized there was really nothing I could do--like hell was I going to try and find him to tell him I needed him to come back--I tried my best to pull myself together, starting with taking classes at our community college. 

Still, I was struggling. There was a restlessness in me that refused to be settled no matter how many times I went hunting. My feelings were very unstable, and they changed fast enough to give me whiplash. One moment I would be reading and the next I'd be sobbing or panicking over a paper that wasn't due for another week. I couldn't sleep, and half the time I didn't even try.

Underneath all the problems I'd been having, there was a feeling of wrongness I could not shake no matter how hard I tried. “Wrongness” was the only word I could think of to call it, truthfully. It was perverse and intrusive yet left me feeling empty.

One thing I'd been working on to help with my issues was meditation. I'd heard it was good for lots of different things, and I was desperate. Who knew if it was going to work or not? I wasn't the most hopeful person at that point, but if vampires were real, I figured there had to be some truth in the self-cultivation that came from meditation and soul-searching. 

I wasn't expecting to find a gaping hole in my soul.

Don’t even ask me how I found it or how I knew. It seemed so obvious when I was looking at something so bright with energy one lazy Sunday afternoon that it was the essence of my being, and there was a gaping hole of simply nothingness in the middle. It was like my soul was trying to surround the nothingness and keep it safe from any more harm.

As soon as I was brought back to reality, I started sobbing. For a split second, I simply couldn’t comprehend how much I’d hated myself in the past year because there was something so beautiful in me. I now knew what made prophets proclaim their dreams and ideas; it was so  _ much _ that it was nearly impossible to keep it in.

But I also despaired. The nothingness looked so wrong, and I knew it was what was causing my restlessness, emotional outbursts, and out-of-place feelings. I didn’t know a whole lot about souls or bonds, but I knew that these problems started as soon as Marco left. Why? Because when he was sucking me dry the day he was reborn, he took part of me and kept it for himself, and I didn’t know until he left because he’d always been close enough to me that it was never a problem.

The longer I thought about it, the more sense it made. It explained why I felt like I needed to be closer to him even though my mind knew he was going to hurt me; why I was insatiable no matter how much I ate; why it felt like I was missing a limb ever since he left. 

The question after that was what was I supposed to do about it? After a month of calling and leaving voicemails and texting Marco, he hadn’t responded to a single one, so asking him to come back was out of the question. I figured he’d changed his phone number anyway. I couldn’t exactly fill up the hole or stitch it shut like a physical wound. 

The only other option was to simply survive with a part of me missing. Sure, I’d been miserable for the past month, but I was still alive and--fairly--healthy. And if I ended up dying within a few years because of it, I was fine with that. In my almost 19 years I’d managed to live more than most humans ever did. 

As we all know, I did live even if I was in constant pain, but I’m nothing if not a stubborn little bitch.

* * *

I went back to the house as soon as I knew I could look at Marco’s face and not start crying. I’m not ashamed to admit it took almost a whole hour. By the time I got back to the house, it was completely dark, and the temperature was at the freezing mark. 

Mikasa was waiting in the living room when I got back. She looked up when I came in and patted the seat next to her on the couch. Armin was resting on her other side, head resting on her shoulder and obviously passed out. 

I sat on the couch and curled up next to her, letting her brush her fingers through my hair. Neither of us said anything for a good ten minutes. She knew I needed time to think things through, and stepping away from the problem always seemed to work the best even though others thought I was simply running away from the problem. 

“Where’d he go?” I asked, 

Her hand paused for a moment before she continued to gently rub my scalp. “Don’t know. He’s coming back in the morning.”

“Oh.” It was quiet for another couple seconds. “I think I want to talk to him. Tonight.”

“I figured,” she replied.

“Isn’t that the adult thing to do?”

“Jean, I love you to death, but when do you ever act like an adult?”

“Wow, I’m actually feeling attacked.”

Her body shook a little bit as she laughed, and I felt a little better knowing I had this--the relationship we had--to come back to no matter what.

Armin snored lightly on her other shoulder, and Mikasa shifted to set him in her lap. He curled up and continued to sleep peacefully. 

“Do you think it’s stupid that I still love him?” I asked.

She pushed Armin’s hair off his face tenderly. “Yes and no. I don’t always understand how you could love somebody that hurt you so bad, but I know it’s only natural for you to love him given your history and bonds.”

I nodded but it was more to myself than to her. I wasn’t sure if I was looking for some sort of validation for my emotions or reassurance that I wasn’t crazy. Even  _ I _ was starting to think I was crazy. “I should be back in a couple hours.”

“And if you’re not?” she asked as I stood up.

I leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be back. I promise.”

She sighed quietly. “You better or I’ll kick your ass into the next century.”

I grinned and grabbed my coat. “All bark and no bite,” I joked.

Her eyes flashed red momentarily. Five years of being a vampire and I still had no idea how she did that. “Don’t test me, Kirschtein.”

“Alright, alright. Love you, Kasa.”

“Love you too, Jean.”

* * *

Reiner was kissing Marco’s neck when Marco’s phone went off.

They were holed up in some cheap, shitty hotel, and there really was no better way to pass the time--especially when the TV only worked for a total of five minutes every hour and when Reiner was insatiable. 

Both of them paused because there was only a handful of people that had his number. Even though Marco never told Reiner what happened in his past, Reiner figured he had some fucked up stuff happen to him--just like what happened to Reiner himself. He tried not to think about his past, but that was harder than it seemed most of the time. 

As Marco reached for his phone on the bedside table, Reiner rolled off him and stood up. He knew Marco well enough by now to know that he wasn’t going to share his texts with him, and it wasn’t from a lack of trying on Reiner’s side. Whatever. He had to piss anyway.

When he got back in the room, Marco was shrugging on the shirt he’d discarded on the floor not even fifteen minutes before. “Where are you going?” Reiner asked, voice carefully neutral. He knew if he sounded too accusing, Marco would clam up.

Marco didn’t look at him as he continued to gather things up. Wallet. Sweatshirt. “You remember Jean from the club the other night?”

“The guy that refused to talk to you earlier today?”

“Yeah.” Keys. He grabbed his boots and started to jam his feet into them. “He’s finally willing to talk, so I have to meet him.”

“Why do you have to meet him on his schedule?” 

Marco sat up from where he was hunched over to tie his shoes. “It’s complicated,” he responded finally. “We have history together.”

“History that you can’t tell me about, right?” Reiner tried not to sound bitter--he really did--but it was kind of hard when the guy he liked was busy chasing after some idiot that wouldn’t give him the time of day. He wasn’t blind to how moody Marco had been since they saw that guy.  _ Especially _ after he got back from wherever he went earlier in the day. “If he hurt you so bad, why are you even bothering with him?” He was grasping at straws at this point because Marco simply wouldn’t tell him  _ anything _ about this Jean character. 

This seemed to make Marco pause. Finally, he looked Reiner in the eye. “I hurt him more than he hurt me, and I have to make it right.”

Reiner was slightly taken aback that Marco gave him a real answer. In the two years they’d known each other, Marco never revealed his feelings. Ever. To be fair, Reiner generally didn’t reveal his feelings either--that wasn’t their relationship--but even when both of them were at their most vulnerable, Marco still kept it all bottled in.

“Call me if anything comes up. I’ll be back in a couple hours, okay?” He stood up and shot Reiner a reassuring smile after snagging his coat off an armchair. “I promise.”

Reiner sighed quietly. “Okay.”  _ I’ll miss you, _ he didn’t say. 

Marco touched his arm, and then he was gone.

Reiner sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the muted TV. Some news station was playing, but he wasn’t paying attention. He understood that Marco had his own demons that he needed to deal with, but he wished he would tell Reiner about them. 

He hadn’t said it out loud--and if things kept going the way they were, he never would--but he loved Marco. Marco was there to help him pull himself back together when Reiner had absolutely nobody. Marco taught him how to love himself. And seeing him so upset  _ bothered _ him to no end. 

Reiner wasn’t sure who this Jean guy was or who the rest of this group of people was that kept Marco awake at night, but Reiner was getting sick of it.

* * *

I pulled into a spot in the tiny parking lot next to the park by the river. It wasn’t even five minutes away from the Ackerman-Smith household, but I had no idea how long to wait for Marco. He said  _ soon _ , but who knew how long that was? The term  _ soon _ became even more ambiguous when you were a vampire. When you have an eternity ahead of you, a year can feel like the blink of an eye.

With a sigh, I got out and locked the door behind me. It was starting to get cloudy, and the moon was disappearing little by little. The way the wind felt told me it was probably going to rain soon.

Soon.

If I was being completely honest with myself, I was a nervous wreck. It’d been such a long time since we’d seen each other last--this afternoon didn’t count--and I was hoping some things had changed since then. It also didn’t help that we were in a park, and we all know what happened the  _ last _ time Marco and I were alone together at a park not too far from here. 

_ “Because I  _ care _ , Marco! Do you not see how stupid it is to just charge after things like this? You could’ve  _ died _.” _

_ “ _ Somebody _ has to do it! If we don’t then nobody will, and even more people will die. Don’t you see that?” _

_ “I don’t give a  _ fuck _ if other people die because they aren’t you, Marco!” _

_ His eyes closed. “Jean…” _

_ I let go of him like he was made of fire. “No! Don’t talk to me.” _

_ “Jean. Jean, wait!” _

_ His hand on my shoulder stopped me as I turned to leave. Actually, it did more than stop me--he spun me around to face him. And then his nose was touching my own. “Please don’t be mad at me,” he pled quietly. “I want to keep our friends safe. I want to keep  _ you _ safe. Can’t you see that?” _

_ His lips were so close to mine, and I was overwhelmed. He smelled so fucking good between the scent of his blood, his body wash, and what was distinctly him. I could hear his heartbeat steadily pounding in his chest. His warm, warm hands were leaving goosebumps wherever they went--my shoulders, arms, sides.  _

_ “Why are you crying?” he whispered, fingertips touching my cheek, and that’s when I knew with 100% certainty, with complete clarity: I loved Marco Bodt. _

The average person sighs about 12 times per hour, but I was single-handedly setting a Guinness World Record for the most amount of sighs in ten minutes. 

Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait much longer. Another car crossed over the train tracks that ran alongside the river and drove around the loop to park right next to me. I held my breath and simply watched as Marco got out of his car and made his way over to me. 

He seemed to hesitate as he approached, and I used the opportunity to properly look at him. His jaw was covered in the beginnings of a goatee that--unfortunately--did things to me. Even under his sweatshirt, I could see that he was still unfairly muscular and fit. And to top it all off, he had a pale, horizontal line on his cheek--a scar from something or other--that looked stupidly attractive on him.

I suddenly felt very small and inadequate in front of such a gorgeous man.

“Hi,” he said.

“H-hi,” I replied, thanking the universe that my voice hadn’t cracked.

“May I join you?” he asked, gesturing at the empty swing next to me. 

“Yeah, sure.”

He approached slowly as if I was some sort of rabid animal that might attack him if I moved too fast, and sat on the swing.

The air between us was so, so tense and awkward, and the hole where my soul should be felt impossibly cavernous. 

“Why did you agree to meet me?” I asked, keeping my voice carefully neutral. The last thing I wanted was for him to leave, but so help me god if I was being pulled into some sort of trap...

“Because we’ve been avoiding and hating each other for the better part of five years.” The chains of the swing squeaked quietly as I pushed off. I could feel his gaze on the side of my face. “Aren’t you sick of it?”

“May I remind you that you’re the one who left me?” I said quietly. There was no point in shouting. He already knew he fucked up, and if he didn’t, yelling at him wasn’t going to help the matter. 

“I know.” He finally looked away. “Jean, I want to make things right. I want us to be normal again.”

I finally turned my head and looked right at him. “Marco. We’re both vampires. ‘Normal’ hasn’t been an option for years.”

He let out a frustrated huff. “Obviously, we can’t be humans again, Jean. I know you’re not so stupid as to think I’d be talking about that.”

I pursed my lips but didn’t respond.

The chains of his swing squeaked as he turned to face me completely. “I miss you. I’ve missed you so fucking much. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about you.”

“You have a pretty fucking funny way of showing it,” I muttered under my breath.

He gave me a completely exasperated but not unkind look as if he knew I was making comments because it was my personality and not because it was my intention to be a dick--at that moment, at least. “Could you shut up for five minutes?”

If looks could kill, he wouldn’t be dead, but he’d be in a coma for about a week at least. 

Marco took another deep breath before he started again. “When I figured out you were a vampire, I was in complete denial. Ever since I was little, I’d been told that supernatural creatures were bad. I always thought my family was just superstitious--especially my mom. It wasn’t until I got older and was introduced to the... family business that I realized they were  _ real _ . And my first impression of them? They took me to the garage and they had an honest-to-god Wendigo in a cage.”

He took a shuddering breath and turned to look straight again as if he couldn’t look at me when he talked. “It was nothing like I’d ever seen. It was pale, and its skin was almost translucent. Its eyes were black, and I could see its jagged teeth covered in blood--it was so hungry it was eating its own fingertips.

“Sure, my parents told me what was waiting for me, but nothing could prepare me for the way it hissed when they lifted the blanket off the cage. The thing was all bones--no fat or anything--and it kept looking at all of us with those eyes like it wanted to rip us to shreds.

“Mom told me what it was and that the reason they’d been gone all weekend was so they could catch the stupid thing. Some idiot brought it here from Canada somehow like some sort of macabre pet.”

I swallowed hard, thinking about how Marco had randomly skipped school and didn’t talk to any of his friends--myself included--for days. He never told me why, and he looked so upset that I never pushed him about it. I guess I never would have gotten a straight answer anyway. 

“I’ll spare you the details of how they killed it, but that scared me so much. After that, I started training to kill the supernatural. I couldn’t get the image of its eyes and teeth out of my mind, and I wanted to protect all the people I loved from ever having to see that type of thing.”

He looked down and scuffed the toes of his boots into the dirt. “I’m sorry for failing you. I was supposed to keep you safe, and I didn’t. You died because I let my guard down.”

I didn’t tell him it was okay because people dying isn’t  _ okay _ , but... “It isn’t your fault that I died, Marco. It was a freak accident, and it could’ve happened to anybody. I’m alive now, aren’t I?”

His smile was so sad it made my undead heart stop. “Jean.”

I gulped around the lump in my throat. “What?”

He shook his head a little and took a deep breath. “When I figured out you actually  _ were _ a vampire, I kept having nightmares of you where you turned into the Wendigo, but your eyes were scarlet. I could barely sleep, and I would get sick sometimes because it was so upsetting. I was  _ afraid _ of you. But even then I couldn't kill you.”

I could feel my throat tightening up, but I still didn't interrupt.

“When you turned me, I hated you, but I mostly hated myself. I couldn't bear to look at myself because I'd become what scared me the most. My fear fueled my hatred.

“It took almost a whole year before I could stand to see my reflection and two before I started to realize I was wrong about the supernatural. When I ran away, I didn’t exactly have a plan as to where I was going, but I knew I had to keep stopping the ones that were killing without abandon. 

“I was hunting down a redcap that was posing as a guard in an old prison and encouraging fights among the inmates when I started to gain a new perspective. I’d been hiding outside trying to figure out a plan to kill it when the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen approached me. Her hair was the color of honey, and it seemed weightless. Her skin seemed to glow under the moonlight, her clothes shimmered and flowed like water, and she walked with such grace. I knew immediately that she wasn’t human, but I had no desire to kill her.”

A weight seemed to settle in my stomach as I heard him describe her with such awe and fondness, and I wondered if he’d ever talked about me like that. 

“She told me she was an undine--you know, like in the Hans Christian Andersen story  _ The Little Mermaid _ \--and asked what a vampire was doing trying to hunt down a redcap without asking for its side of the story. At first, I thought that was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard, but she went on to explain how, like most redcaps, this one was born from a blood sacrifice on the foundation. In other words: somebody killed him while the prison was being built, and he was stuck there. It wasn’t his fault that he was created. Killing is in his nature.

“I told her that killing people isn’t right, and she said, ‘Who says? To a redcap, killing is right. To vampires, killing is part of your life. Even humans kill other humans, sometimes to exact revenge for past transgressions. Is the death penalty right? You have been spreading death and bringing sorrow everywhere you go. What makes you more right than somebody else?

“‘I will not stop you from killing it, but remember, you are no better than him.’ And she left.”

Finally, he turned his head to look at me again. I met his eyes and was unable to look away. “I didn’t kill it even though I wanted to. I didn’t feel shame or remorse for killing all those beings--yet, anyway. As I traveled the country in search of  _ something _ \--a goal, anything--I met those that took me in and helped me. Other vampires, werewolves, a fucking hippogriff, you name it. Not all of them were pleasant, but they often had more humanity than most humans do--than I ever did as a human.”

He sighed and looked out toward the river again. “I have a lot of regrets for somebody that’s only 23 years old, but the one that disappoints me the most is how I treated my best friend.”

Half the gears in my mind were halted, but the other half of them were spinning at a hundred miles per hour. I could hear the genuine pain in his voice, and through our bond, I could feel the remorse as if it were my own. I was stuck between still being upset at the things he did and said to me and how my heart softened at hearing his story. Even though we’d been apart for years, I couldn’t break the habit of wanting to be there for him, of wanting to help alleviate his pain. 

“It’s probably too late now to tell you how sorry I am, but I wanted you to know. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry I hunted you down and treated you like shit and left you when you were trying to help me. I was wrong.”

For a few moments, I could only stare at him. In front of me was the person who’d single-handedly caused me the most joy and pain I’d ever felt in my life. I knew I should toss him to the curb because if it happened once, it could happen again. But he seemed so different from before--more mature. 

I was reminded of a psychology class I took in college. We learned that people have to be taught how they should act because how are they supposed to know what is acceptable and what is not? Marco was taught by his parents who were taught by their parents and so on that the acceptable thing to do when you come across anything that isn’t completely human is to kill it. How could I fault him for being born into a family that taught him wrong? Yelling at him and telling him he was wrong and that he hurt me again and again--something he already knew and felt horrible about--wasn’t going to get anybody anywhere. Especially not us. Especially given our history. 

I took a shuddery breath and hoped he couldn’t hear it. (He probably could.)

“Marco, look at me.”

His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. After about three more seconds, he looked at me. The beginnings of tears were pooled in his eyes, and I wanted nothing more than to reach out to him, to wipe them away and cradle his face in my palms. 

“We’ve been through a lot, haven’t we?” He sniffed and nodded. “Marco, it isn’t our fault that these things have happened to us. I’ve come to realize over the years that you never had a truly caring role model in your life. Your family only taught you to hate what’s different, and I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to help you.”

He opened his mouth, but I cut him off. “Could you shut up for five minutes?” I asked, parroting what he said earlier. 

After a deep breath, he nodded. 

“I was in a bad place after I turned you--you know this already--and after you left, I didn’t know how to cope. It took... a really long time for me to get my shit together again, but I’m much, much more stable now. I’ve had a long time to think, and I’ve forgiven myself for the things I saw as my fault. I’m sorry I turned you without your permission, but I watched you die, Marco. I’m not going to apologize for wanting you to live.” 

After a small pause to collect my thoughts, I continued. “I did manage to get it together, though. I went to the university like we always talked about. And I think being away from here really helped. I never really thought about it, but this town is so narrow-minded and constricting in all aspects of life. I know now that I don’t really fit in here, and I never have--neither of us did. 

“Being at college gave me a new perspective. Taking classes that were genuinely interesting and insightful helped. I took a lot of psychology courses, and I began to understand without really understanding why you did what you did. That didn’t make it any less painful, but it became easier to see things from your point of view even if I didn’t exactly have all the details. 

“I’ve forgiven you, and it isn’t because I needed to forgive you for me. No, I forgave you because you didn’t know any better--you couldn’t have. What kind of role model is a sibling that shoots his own fucking brother and then makes an excuse to leave, so he doesn’t have to go to the fake funeral? What kind of mother would allow her sons to be hateful to their brother simply because he likes men?” I shook my head. “That’s not your fault.”

Marco blinked, and a few tears fell onto his cheeks. He quickly wiped them away as if he was embarrassed. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel like crying along with him.

“We both know that what you did was hurtful, but I know it isn’t your fault, and I’ve forgiven you. I forgive you, and I’m proud of how much you’ve grown.”

As I spoke the words, I realized how true it was. I was still angry and upset and hurt at times by what he’d said and done, but at the bottom of all that pain was a scared boy that simply needed somebody to be there for him, somebody to look up to. 

He sniffed and buried his face in his hands, and I could feel the sadness but also the relief and the freedom coming from him--as if he’d been waiting for me to say that. 

The emptiness in me throbbed longingly for the man sitting next to me, but it wasn’t as unbearable as normal. We weren’t exactly  _ okay _ yet, but we were trying, and that was what mattered. 

We didn’t say anything for the longest time. The only sounds were that of the wind, the river, and the cars driving by on the highway behind us. I shivered as a particularly strong gust of wind cut right through my coat. Being a vampire had its advantages, yes, but we weren’t immune, and I was starting to freeze my ass off. 

Marco finally wiped his palms on the tops of his thighs and looked at me again. “What do we do now?”

I gave him a small shrug. Honestly, I didn’t think we were going to actually get through this conversation, let alone without any shouting or finger-pointing. I didn’t know how much he’d changed since he left, and I guess I didn’t realize how much  _ I’d _ changed either. 

The chains creaked as he stood up and moved to stand in front of me. Sticking his hand out, he said, “Hi, I’m Marco. I know we haven’t talked in years, but it’s really nice to see you, and I hope we can get to know each other again.”

I first looked at his outstretched hand then up at his face. It was so open and full of something I can only call hope. Even his voice sounded warm and determined. Whether he was determined to not fuck us up again or just to be a better person in general was beyond me. 

After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, I grasped his hand in mine, all but melting at how it felt to touch the missing part of my soul and the hand of the man whose soul complimented my own. “I’m Jean, and I’d love to be your friend again.”

The biggest grin split his face open, and I couldn’t help but smile back. He squeezed my hand impossibly hard, and I gripped it back just as tight. Seeing his bright smile in the late hours of an autumn night dazzled me, and I had the sudden thought that everything was right again. We weren’t friends at that moment, but I could see that he was prepared to do whatever it took to earn my trust back, and I was ready to the same for him. 

“Can we go home now? I’m fucking freezing,” I blurted out, and when he laughed, I felt it in my bones. 

He let go of my hand. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”

* * *

Home for both of us were two very different things. I was going back to the Ackerman-Smith household, and he was going back to wherever he was staying, but that was okay. We were going to be seeing more of each other from now on anyway. 

When I got back to the house, Mikasa was still on the couch, but Armin was nowhere to be seen. I presumed she sent him upstairs to avoid a fucked up neck. 

“How did it go?” she asked carefully as I toed my shoes off.

I joined her on the couch and rested my head on her lap, enjoying the feeling of her fingers carding through my hair. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

So I told her, and for the record, she was just as shocked as I was.

* * *

Reiner checked the curtains every twenty minutes or so--emphasis on  _ or so _ \--while Marco was gone, and  _ finally, _ after the fourth or fifth time he peeked through the curtains, the car was back in the parking lot. He quickly let the curtain fall back in case Marco saw him and thought he was a creep or something. 

After five minutes of absolutely nothing, Reiner started to wonder what was going on, and after eight, he got concerned. Thirteen whole minutes after Reiner had let the curtain close, the door opened, and Marco came in. 

“How did it go?” Reiner asked in a carefully neutral voice. 

Marco nodded a little to himself before he smiled brightly, and Reiner was dazzled. Yeah, he’d seen Marco smile before, but this wasn’t a particular smile he’d seen very often, and he was suddenly envious of the person that caused it. “It went great. A lot better than I thought.”

“Good,” he replied, hoping there might be more details, but Marco simply grabbed some extra clothes and shut the bathroom door to shower. The whole time he was in, he hummed some random, upbeat song Reiner had never heard--or maybe he made it up himself. 

That night, Marco went to bed without paying much attention to Reiner at all--no kisses, lingering touches, and barely a goodnight--and Reiner felt suddenly lonely; if he wanted to be left alone, he would’ve gotten a room with two beds instead of one. 

As it was, he turned the TV off with a heavy sigh and pushed aside his irritation. Marco was just happy that he’d made things right with this Jean guy. That was all. It wasn’t like he was going to leave Reiner for him or anything. 

Reiner wouldn’t let him. 

* * *

I woke up the next day to the sound of my phone buzzing on the nightstand. The sound confused me for a moment before I realized I was back in my bed. I was supposed to be staying with my family the whole time I was home, but I’d fallen asleep at Mikasa’s house and Eren’s house already since I’d been home. The only reason I made sure I fell asleep here for the night was because it was Thanksgiving.

Reaching over blindly, I grabbed my phone and turned it on, squinting when the light burned my eyes. A true downside to being a vampire was that sudden shifts in light and sound hurt about ten times worse than it ever did as a human. 

After seeing that it was Connie, I lowered the volume for the call and answered it, expecting him to be too loud as usual. “Hello?”

“Jean. Can I talk to you?”

I blinked and rolled over onto my back, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes with my thumb and ring finger. It was a bit surprising that he hadn’t been yelling into the mic. Even at the asscrack of dawn--anything before eleven counted, okay--he was bright and energetic. Like Armin on heroin. “Yeah, dude. What’s up?”

He was quiet for another few seconds, and I sat up in bed. This was  _ extremely  _ out of character for him. 

“Yo, Conman. You still there?”

“Y-yeah, I just... Jean, I think I’m gonna ask Sasha to marry me.”

The news surprised me, but after the initial shock wore off, it made sense. They’d been together literally for as long as I could remember, and they were the definition of best friends. “Connie, that’s great!”

There was another pause. “Do you think she’d say yes?”

I facepalmed. “ _ Of fucking course she’ll say yes _ . You’re both head over heels for each other, aren’t you?”

“I mean, yeah but...”

“Hey, man. What are you worried about?”

He huffed on the other end of the line. “I don’t know. We’ve only talked about getting married, like, one time. It isn’t super important to her--to either of us, really--but I want to make things official with us.  _ More _ official. Legal.”

I took a moment to collect my thoughts before I answered him. I could understand why he was so nervous--this was a huge deal for the both of them--but I also knew hell would have to freeze over before Sasha said no to being engaged to Connie. I hadn’t had much experience--success, if we’re being honest right now--in the love department, but even I could see that they belonged together in the way that the moon and the stars belonged in the same sky. 

“I’ve been friends with both of you since we were little kids, and I think you’re both perfect for one another. Complimentary. Asking her to marry you would just be sealing your relationship in the eyes of the government and, like, God or whatever.”

There was another pause so long I thought he’d hung up or passed out. “I’m gonna ask her. This week.”

A smile broke across my face. I could only imagine how she would react. 

“Could you help me pick out a ring? Not today, but, I dunno, in a couple days?”

“Of course,” I told him immediately. “We can go tomorrow if you’re free.”

His relief was obvious in his voice. “Yeah, I am in the morning. Thanks, man.”

“No problem. And hey, Con?”

“Yeah?”

“Happy Thanksgiving.”

I could hear his smile as he said, “Happy Thanksgiving to you too.”

* * *

Once I was dressed, I went downstairs and saw the controlled chaos in our kitchen. Two turkeys were cooking in the oven as Dad cut potatoes, and Mom was loading the dishwasher with whatever was in the sink. They both looked up as I came in.

I snorted at Mom’s slightly frantic look. “Do you need some help?”

Dad chuckled, and Mom nodded with a grateful look on her face. “Please.”

As I started cutting sweet potatoes, Mom gave me a quick hug from behind as a thank you, and I smiled. Mom liked to cook, but doing it for large crowds always stressed her out, and if the sheer amount of turkey was anything to go by... “Are we having guests over?”

Mom paused on the other side of the island, across from where I was standing, and she briefly made eye contact with Dad before she looked at me again. “I was thinking it would be nice to have the Ackerman-Smith family over since they’ve been our friends for decades now, and well, they’re basically family at this point.”

It was obvious that she was referencing my bond with Mikasa, and I was honestly touched. She hadn’t been too pleased--pissed, even--when she found out what had happened to me, and that woman can hold a grudge like nobody’s business. It had taken her quite some time, but she was starting to realize that things like these couldn’t be changed, and mistakes did happen--even if they were fatal. Plus, I think she realized just how important Mikasa is to me in a completely platonic way. 

I put down the knife I was holding and went around the counter to gather her in a hug. It had been years since I passed her in height, but I always forgot about it since my mom was a larger-than-life type of person. “Thank you,” I said.

She squeezed me back quickly, obviously a bit surprised at my reaction. “I’d do anything for you, Jeanbo.”

I left a peck on the top of her head before I went back to cooking, and when I caught my dad’s eye, he gave me a slight nod of approval. I wasn’t sure why things were starting to fall into place within the past two days, but I was immensely grateful.

* * *

It wasn’t until later in the afternoon that I thought about what Marco was doing for Thanksgiving. Hey, don’t give me that look. I’d been kept busy all day with the cooking, baking, entertaining the kids, and talking to the adults. Plus, Eren and Armin came by for a bit, and even Ymir dropped by to say hello. I had a feeling Connie and Sasha were going to stop by later in the evening too, so I was trying to help out with drying the dishes and put them away to keep my parents from being too stressed. 

I’d just sat down on the couch with a piece of pie next to Percy when Marco popped into my head. I didn’t know where he was staying, and I wasn’t totally sure who he was with, so I had no idea what he was doing. He obviously wasn’t with his family, that much I knew. 

A foot nudged mine, and I looked at my brother. “What?”

“You’re, like, a billion miles away, dude. What’s up?” He ripped a piece off a dinner roll he was picking on and shoved it in his mouth. 

I debated lying to him. My family didn’t know a whole lot about what happened after Marco got turned. Read: they didn’t know he’d been turned at all. All they knew was I’d left right after I graduated and didn’t come back until about a year later--because they thought I’d been grieving the loss of my best friend. They had no idea Marco was still alive. 

You know, I thought that once I told them about me being a vampire, things would get easier, but it really hasn’t. It just made me feel guilty, like, all the time. 

I let out a long, heavy sigh. “Perc, if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What could be more unbelievable than you being a vampire?”

Okay, true. I didn’t tell the twins originally, but about a year and a half ago I told them when I was back during the summer. Percy had gone really quiet for a while, but Lucy had been very openly skeptical. In fact, she thought I was on drugs. I mean, I probably would think that too if I hadn’t felt myself die and all. 

She came around eventually, especially after I showed her my fangs and, uh, let them watch me eat something. That definitely sold it. 

We both looked at each other for a very long moment. He stared back at me with an open expression, and I was reminded of just how kind and caring my little brother was. 

With a final sigh, I let my head fall back against the back of the couch. “I’ll tell you later, but you have to promise you won’t tell anybody, okay?”

He went back to eating his roll and watching the television after he lightly elbowed me in the side. “Of course.”

* * *

You know, you’d think playing a card game with friends and family on Thanksgiving day would be fun, but I wasn’t having fun. At all. Mostly because I sucked at whatever we were playing this time, and I hadn’t gotten anywhere close to winning a single round. 

With a frustrated groan, I tossed my cards onto the table and announced I was taking a break. The whole room laughed and poked good-naturedly at me, but I rolled my eyes and grabbed a jean jacket before stepping outside into the cool air. The sun was nearly gone at this point in the afternoon, but I didn’t mind. It was nice to sit on the porch and watch the colors bleed across the sky.

Moments after I sat down, the door opened behind me, and Lucy came to sit next to me. “Sick of getting your ass kicked or somethin’?”

I snorted. “Maybe I just like looking at the sunset, you ever think about that, you fucking twerp?”

She shot me a look that told me she obviously wasn’t buying it. 

Percy wasn’t the only one who’d grown since I was off at college. Lucy’s hair was long now and perfectly curled for Thanksgiving, and her eyeliner was absolutely flawless. She wasn’t as tall as me--only up to my shoulder--but she definitely made up for her height in personality. She still gave off a  _ Do not fuck with me _ vibe, and I wasn’t worried about her heading off to college. She reminded me of Mikasa, in all honesty. 

“What are  _ you _ doing out here, huh? Did you actually miss me or something?”

She rolled her eyes. “Maybe I just like looking at the sunset, you ever think about that?” she countered.

I outright laughed at that, and her fake scowl melted into a small smile too. I hooked an arm around her neck and kissed the top of her head, and she rested her head on my shoulder. “Missed you, kid,” I told her.

“Missed you too, jerk.” After a few moments of silence, she lifted her head. “Do you smoke?”

“What? No, of course not.” Flashes of the few times I smoked in the past week rose in my mind. Fuck. “Why do you ask?”

Her nose wrinkled. “You smell like cigarettes.”

“Oh.” I looked down and noticed I was wearing the same jacket I wore when I went outside with Mikasa earlier. I must’ve forgotten to wash it. “Nah, it was from somebody else who was smoking near me.”

She narrowed her eyes a little like she didn’t believe me, but she dropped it anyway. 

It didn’t take long for the sun to dip the rest of the way down, and Lucy started to shiver. I didn’t blame her--she was only wearing a maroon sweater and skinny jeans, after all. “C’mon, let’s go back inside,” I said.

She nodded, and we went back in the house with our arms around each other where I got decimated at another four rounds of card games.

* * *

I was laying on my bed with my eyes closed, trying to fight off a tension headache. As a vampire, my tendency for headaches went away for the most part, but today was a stressful day, even if it was the good kind of stress. Everybody was finally gone, the dishes were clean, and my whole family was relaxing in their respective rooms. My phone was resting on my stomach, and I was tapping it absentmindedly with my fingertips.

Honestly? I was contemplating texting Marco. I wasn’t totally sure what I’d say, though. Would it be weird if I just randomly texted him out of the blue? What if he was busy with somebody else? What if he was out eating with  _ Reiner _ ?

I blew out a breath and tapped out a quick message that said,  _ Hey, have you eaten yet? _ Before I could think anything else about it, I hit send and put my phone on the bedside table. Staring at the message until my eyes dried out wasn’t going to help anything, especially not my mental state. 

I stood up and was stretching when I heard quiet footsteps approach my door followed by three taps. “Come in,” I called out, sitting back down.

Percy cracked the door open and stepped in. 

“Hey, what are you doing up?” I asked before I realized it was literally only eight PM.

He raised an eyebrow at me but let my slipup slide. “Weren’t you going to tell me what you were thinking earlier?”

I opened my mouth to answer but got distracted by the buzzing on my nightstand. Without thinking about it, I reached over and opened up the message. It was from Marco.  _ No, why? _

I glanced up at Percy. “Hey, you wanna go for a ride?”

* * *

“Where are you taking me?” Percy asked for the millionth time. I swear this kid is going to be the death of me. If the murderer doesn’t decide to come after me first.

That was a joke. Please laugh. 

I rolled my eyes and ignored him as I parked on the side of the street next to the park where I basically confessed my love to Marco all those years ago. 

“The park?” he asked in disbelief. “You brought me out in the freezing cold to go to the park? You know, not all of us can handle the cold weather like you, Jean.”

“You literally have a giant coat on, you brat. I only have a sweatshirt and a jean jacket.”

He grinned mischievously. “When you talk like that you sound like Levi.”

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. “Get out of the goddamn car.”

He huffed but did as he was told. I got in the back seat of the car and took out the leftovers I’d packed up and shut the door with my hip. Silently, we headed toward the swings. My eyes adjusted, and I was able to see that Marco was waiting in one of the seats, but I didn’t think Percy could see him yet. 

When he heard us approach, Marco stood and looked between the two of us. He seemed a bit hesitant, but he started walking closer.

“Hey,” I called out, and Percy squinted in the darkness to see who I was talking to. 

Once Marco was close enough, Percy’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “What the fuck?” he breathed.

“Yeah,” I responded, noting his use of profanity. Unlike me and Lucy, he wasn’t big on swearing. Cuss words were reserved for special occasions like stubbing your toe on the coffee table or seeing your eldest sibling’s dead best friend walking toward you. 

“But...  _ how _ ?” He looked at me with wide eyes. I could see the gears spinning in his head. Percy was a really smart kid, and I had no doubt that he would be able to put two and two together. 

We met Marco halfway. His hands were jammed in the pockets of his coat, and he looked like he wanted to run. 

In order to break the heavy silence that fell over us, I held the containers of food out to him. “Here,” I said. “Mom, Dad, and I made the main dishes, and Levi made the pie. So, um, yeah.”

He took them from me and held them like they were precious stones. I wondered how long it’d been since he had a home-cooked meal. “Thank you for this. I haven’t had green bean casserole in  _ years _ .”

“It’s no problem,” I murmured in reply, pretending that I was only imagining the way my ears felt like they were warming up.

My little brother was still standing completely still beside me in disbelief, so I elbowed him lightly in the side to try and bring him back to life. “H-hi,” he stammered.

Marco looked at him in what I could only describe as awe. “Percy?”

Percy nodded. 

“Oh my god. You’ve grown so much.” Marco’s eyes flicked between me and my brother, no doubt comparing us. Percy always tended to take after our dad, but the two of us did look somewhat similar, even more so as he continued to grow and get more mature. “H-how old are you?”

“I’m seventeen.” He lifted his chin a little. Even though he was trying to look confident, I could tell he was confused and shocked. “How old are  _ you _ ?”

At that, Marco cracked a grin. “Twenty-three. Seriously, what are they putting in the water here? You’re so  _ tall _ .”

Percy visibly relaxed a little as he grinned at me. 

“God, don’t remind me,” I grumbled, letting out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. There was no way for me to tell how either of them would’ve reacted to seeing each other, and I was relieved they were interacting like they used to. 

The two of them laughed and exchanged a little more small talk. I simply watched, tapping into our bond to see how Marco was feeling. There was still some hesitation lingering, but it was overcome with the overwhelming feeling of yearning. It was no secret that Marco loved my brother and sister as if they were their own, and it had to be jarring to see just how much time had passed since he’d seen them.

A buzzing sound made Marco frown, and he adjusted his grip on the food to pull his phone out of his back pocket. After a few moments, he put it back and gave us an apologetic smile. “I have to go, but it was really, really nice to see you. I’m so proud of you.” Even if I didn’t have the bond with him, the way his eyes shone was evidence that he wasn’t lying. 

Percy smiled brightly and thanked him, always graceful with praise, before he glanced between me and Marco. “I’ll give you guys a minute,” he said, and then he was shrugging the hood to the sweatshirt he was wearing under his coat over his head and walking to the car. 

I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to imply anything or not. Sometimes it seemed like the kid was too smart for his own good.

“H-happy Thanksgiving, Jean.”

My eyes rose to meet Marco’s. Even though we’d hashed things out the other night, things weren’t perfect by any means. It took time to rebuild a relationship when you had a complicated history. “Happy Thanksgiving to you too.” I rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly, debating if I should say what I was thinking. 

_ Ah, what the hell _ . 

“Maybe we could, I dunno, spend Thanksgiving together sometime in the future.”

We were both a blushing mess, but he didn’t avert his eyes. When he smiled, his whole face lit up, and I was beginning to see just how much I missed it. “Yeah, I’d really love that.”

After a few more moments of silence, I coughed and stepped back. “I should really go, but feel free to, like, text me or something. I dunno.”

“I will,” he replied, and with another lingering look, he turned and walked toward the other end of the park. I headed to my car too, but whenever I glanced behind me, he was always staring at me with a small smile on his face.

* * *

As expected, Percy followed me into my room when we got home and demanded what the hell that was about. I sighed and told him to get Lucy because I wasn’t explaining it twice, and she deserved to know too.

Percy and Lucy were actually very supportive as siblings went, but I kept them as sheltered as I could. Who wouldn’t? I didn’t want them to experience the same things I had. The only thing I ever told them was that I got turned and some of the basic things about vampires--most of which they knew already anyway. They both asked tons of questions, but knowing things about vampires in general wasn’t the same as knowing your older brother’s drama.

As soon as they were sitting on the floor across from me,I told them everything starting from when I’d been turned. I told them how I died, how Marco was the first person to find me, and how I’d struggled and worried about hurting them for the longest time. I told them how scared I was of Mikasa and her whole family because of what’d happened to me, and I told them how my feelings for Marco continued to grow despite the fact that he and his whole family were Hunters. 

The twins’ faces were unreadable when I told them about my feelings for another man. This was basically me coming out to them, and I knew they were okay with homosexuality to a certain extent--they were around Erwin and Levi quite a bit--but I didn’t know how they would react to finding out their own brother was attracted to men as well.

Lucy seemed to notice that I was getting nervous because she sat right next to me and grabbed my hand in hers. I held it tight and took a moment to collect my thoughts. They both sat patiently and waited until I was ready to continue. 

When I was calm again, I continued. I didn’t leave anything out except for the part about my soul being missing and the dreams I had of Marco--they were mature enough for me to share my feelings with them, but there was no way in hell I was telling them how it felt to bottom for Marco Bodt in my best dreams.

Lucy squeezed my hand tight when I told them with an almost clinical detachment about how Monte was trying to kill us all and ended up shooting Marco. Percy even moved to my other side to grip my other hand when I told them about my suicide attempt because I couldn’t handle the hateful look in his eyes. 

“Why would you even go see him then?” he asked, obviously pissed.

“You went and saw him after all that?” Lucy demanded. “Are you stupid?”

“Hey, hey,” I soothed. “That’s only half the story, guys.”

Lucy lowkey glared at me but let me finish.

I continued by telling them how we were stuck together for six whole months until I confronted him and he ran off the next day. Most of what came after that was stuff they already knew--my time at college and looking for a way to cure vampirism--but I also told them the  _ real _ reason why I was here: Because vampires were being systematically murdered and drained by one or more vampires. 

When I was done, the twins exchanged a look. 

“So let me make sure we’ve got this right,” Lucy began. “You died at that party, like, five years ago, and you bonded with Marco because he was the first person you saw. Then you found out he was a hunter and fell in love with him anyway cause you’re mates like Erwin and Levi, so you graduated early and left to save everybody else.”

“And when you came back, Marco died and you turned him. Then you basically had to raise him for six months because it’s, like, your job even though he hated you and literally made you try to kill yourself,” Percy continued.

“Then when he left you pulled your shit together, and you’re back now because you’re all trying to solve a bunch of murders, and you think Erwin and Levi are next on the hit list. Oh, and not to mention, you  _ forgave _ him for what happened in the past.” She looked at our brother. “Does that about sum it up?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Happy Thanksgiving,” I muttered ironically. 

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” Lucy asked. 

“When is the right time to tell your siblings that you attempted suicide and that somebody they thought was dead actually isn’t?”

“Touche,” Percy grumbled.

“Look, I’m here now, aren’t I?”

They both huffed at the same time. Jeez, it was like they were twins or something. 

“Just so we’re clear, I forgave him a long time ago because I know how scary it can be, and I can’t even begin to imagine how it must feel to turn into something you were taught to hate. He isn’t the same person he was four years ago. Neither of us are.”

“Are you sure?” Lucy looked right into my eyes, and I could see the concern in hers. “Like  _ actually _ sure?”

“Positive.”

* * *

Marco could hardly believe his luck when Jean asked if he wanted some of the leftovers from Thanksgiving. His stomach growled at the mere thought of turkey and mashed potatoes. Years of being on the road made you cherish hot, homemade food. 

He’d been ecstatic as he headed to meet Jean because what was better than getting free food from a friend? Yeah. Jean was definitely his friend again, right?

Marco definitely hadn’t been expecting to see Percy there too, and it really threw him off. Sure, he’d thought about the twins--he’d always adored the shit out of them, and there were times when he wished they were his siblings instead of the ones he actually had--but he never ever imagined that he’d get to see them again in real life. It became obvious in the first twenty seconds or so that Percy had no idea Marco was alive. 

He was handling it pretty well, in Marco’s opinion.

Once Marco was back at the hotel, he heated up the leftovers and nearly moaned at the taste. He was selfishly glad Reiner wasn’t there because he didn’t feel like sharing at the moment. 

When Marco was starting to turn his life back around, he did a lot of research on vampires because what better way to get it together than to be informed? One thing that interested him greatly was the idea of mates. He already knew that Jean was his mate, but he wanted to know what that meant, and he was absolutely fascinated. 

One aspect that wasn’t as popular anymore was a courting process between pairs. Both did certain things for the other to show their love and devotion in a physical way. Giving offerings such as food was a great way to do that, and it made sense in a weird way why Marco felt like keeping it all to himself--his mate had given him an offering that was just for him, after all. 

He must’ve fallen asleep sometime while he was pondering this fact because he was woken up by the sound of his phone buzzing on the bedside table. It was a text from a contact he hadn’t heard from in years.

**From: Lucy**

**Hey, this is Lucy and Percy. Jean told us everything and we wanted you to know that if you break his heart again we’re going to find you and kill you ourselves**

Marco gulped. No stress or anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was a shit ton of character growth and, like, no plot, but it's all important later on!!!


End file.
